Lamentations
by blucougar57
Summary: Bobby Goren's past comes back to haunt him just as his career finally takes off with his acceptance into the NYPD's Major Case Squad. Finished.
1. Prologue

A/N: Here is my NaNoWriMo story, as promised. Since I have only the epilogue left to write, I figured it was a pretty safe bet to go ahead and post it. Please be aware, though - this was very much a 'head down, bums up, shove it through at any cost story. In accordance with NaNo recommendations, I did as little re-reading, etc as possible in order to focus on getting the word count. I _think_ I've come up with a reasonably cohesive story, but if there are any discrepancies, please forgive me.

Secondly, in the process of doing this project, my friend and I realised what my motto is:  
'Bad things happen to good people. A lot.'  
Yes, this holds true for this little angst fest.

Disclaimers: The usual. I do not own the Law & Order characters, Mr Dick Wolf does. Lucky bastard. Nor do I own the characters of Jason Scott, Tommy Oliver, Kim Hart, Trini Kwan, Billy Cranston or Zack Taylor. Haim Saban owns them, and I'm considerably less distressed about _that_ fact.  
However, the characters of Melissa and Alan Scott, Donavon and Sarah Scott and Ben Paxton are my own. Not that that counts for a hell of a lot in the grand scheme of things.

Rating: T  
I'm placing a T rating on this, because after reading all the happy little torture fests that sit comfortably with a T rating, I figured this is not so bad. At least, it's not when compared with my other sick little torture tale, _Blind Trust_.  
**However**, that aside, I will warn readers that there is violence and angst in this story. I mean, hey, it's me! What else did you expect...?

* * *

_Fifteen years previous_

Melissa Scott sat in the dark of the family room of her home, her hands clenched tightly together on her lap. She sat in silence, staring blindly ahead, barely aware of the tears on her cheeks.

She wasn't merely afraid – she was terrified. It had started out as an ordinary enough day. She had risen at five o'clock as usual in order to make sure everything was ready for when her husband got up an hour later. She'd set out her husband's clothes for him, and then roused her eight year-old son, Jason. She had then set about cooking breakfast for Alan. Bacon, eggs, sausage and steak – rare, not well done – just the way he liked it.

By the time Alan rose, his wife and son would both be dressed and presentable, and a hot breakfast would be on the table waiting for him – just how he liked it.

Alan would leave for work at seven-thirty on the dot, and she would see Jason off to his school in the Bronx a half hour after that. She had to make certain Jason was inside the school gates by a quarter past eight, because Alan would inevitably call and check. Not everyday, mind, but often enough that she dared not deviate from the routine set by him in any way. To do so meant punishment, for herself and her son.

So she saw Jason safely off to school, and then promptly returned home to clean the house, wash clothes, and deal with any other tasks that her husband may have set for her.

Sometimes he left a note for her, specifying what he wanted for dinner that night, whether it was steak, chicken or beef, and she would then call the local butcher and have the meat delivered. She never went to the shops herself, not on her own. Never on her own. Going on her own meant running the risk of running into someone who might ask difficult questions, questions that might eventually get back to her husband. Questions that might lead to punishment.

Today, though, he'd left no such note, which meant he did not intend on coming home for dinner. On nights like that, she and Jason had what they called 'fun' meals. They'd have spaghetti and meatballs, or pizza, meals that had the potential to be messy. These were the types of meals that were never permitted when Alan was home. He hated mess. Tonight, it should have been a 'fun meal' night.

So, with that in mind, she'd thrown herself into the housework with extra fervour, taking care to be extremely thorough. He demanded thoroughness in her housework, and she tried so hard to meet his expectations, and when she did he was pleased. And when he was pleased, everything was good.

On those times when she didn't meet his expectations, when she didn't please him… Well, she preferred not to think about those times.

This morning, she had been a little too thorough. She had been collecting clothes to was, and was hanging up other clothes when she found the bag.

It was sitting on the floor of her husband's closet, a small black sports bag. She didn't recognise it, and allowed curiosity to take hold long enough to bend down and look inside.

In hindsight, she really should have known better.

At first, she didn't understand what she was looking at. Inside the bag was a knife and multiple pairs of underwear. Women's lacy, skimpy underwear. And all of them were stained with blood. Not menstrual blood, either. No, this was blood, as though from someone who had been cut, badly cut.

In a panic, she's zipped the bag up again, banged shut the doors of the closet and retreated to the family room to think. And that was where she sat for the next hour and a half, steadily working herself into a state of pure terror.

Melissa had often been accused of naivety by her husband, and in his opinion, naivety and stupidity were one and the same. But naivety does not equate to stupidity, and Melissa Scott was most certainly not stupid.

Though she desperately wanted to deny it, Melissa understood what those items in that bag represented. She understood, and it terrified her.

She knew all too well her husband's ferocious temper, and deep in her heart she'd always known he was capable of killing someone. Her greatest shame, at that very Moment of realisation and understanding that he had actually gone out and taken a life (more than one, by all appearances), was that it wasn't on her the receiving end of that terribly sharp-looking knife.

Briefly, she considered pretending she'd never seen the damn bag, or what was in it. She could pretend, just push it right out of her mind. But Melissa was a good, caring person, unlike her volatile husband, and she couldn't turn a blind eye now that she was aware of her husband's misdeeds. And therein lay her dilemma.

Firstly, was she willing to risk not only her own safety, but that of her son as well by turning her husband in? If the answer to that question was yes, then who could she possibly turn him in to? Her husband had the rank of Detective First Grade with the NYPD Homicide unit, and he was well-respected by both his peers and his superiors.

Melissa remembered with painful clarity the last time she had officially made a complaint against Alan. It had been early in their marriage, when Jason was barely more than a baby, and she had made the mistake of preparing cereal for Alan instead of the hot, cooked breakfast that he always expected. When she had tried to apologise, saying that the baby had kept her awake most of the night, and she'd woken up late, exhausted, Alan had first punched her, and then he had turned on baby Jason.

Melissa waited until he'd gone off to work, and then called 911 to report that her husband had beaten both her and her child. Thanks to Alan's many connections, though, the complaint had never been followed through, and she had found herself locked up at the Carmel Ridge Institute for the Mentally Ill. She'd been there for a month, locked away and hysterical with fear for the safety of her baby, before Alan had finally seen fit to have her released.

He never laid a hand on her when he brought her home, not that time, but the unspoken threat was only too real. If she ever dared to report him again, he would have her committed, and never released. She believed he could do it and so, from that time on, with thoughts of her precious son foremost in her mind, she had never again considered turning him in. That was, until now. But the question remained, who? Who did she dare trust?

Even as she wondered, a name came to mind. Goren… She remembered an Officer Goren… Robert, had he called himself? Yes, Officer Robert Goren, a young uniformed officer from one of the local precincts. The Two-Seven, she thought. He had been one of many officers who had come to their door in answer to numerous complaints of spousal and child abuse from – in Alan's own words – fucking nosy neighbours. And of all those officers, only he had looked doubtful and suspicious at her husband's flippant excuses for the disturbances. Only he had dared to try and nudge his way past Alan into the house – unsuccessfully, of course, and Alan had been furious later on at the young cop's audacity – and only he had asked to speak directly to Melissa, rather than simply taking Alan's word for what had happened.

She remembered clearly the look on that young man's face as she tried to laugh off the bruises, blaming them on her own clumsiness. He hadn't believed her, and he definitely hadn't believed Alan. He had eventually gone away that night, but Melissa had happened to glance out the window nearly twenty minutes later and had been surprised to see that young officer still standing there, watching the house. Though she couldn't be sure, with the light of day dimming fast, she believed he had been genuinely concerned.

A couple of days later, her belief in that young man's sincerity and honesty was cemented when Alan came home in a rage. That very same young officer had started sniffing around, and had actually had the nerve to approach his superiors, pushing for an investigation, and asking for protection for Melissa and Jason. Alan had been angrier than she'd seen him for a long time, and had ranted for over an hour that he was going to bust that young cop so far down the ladder that the police sniffer dogs would be a higher rank.

The next day all had been fine again. Alan had come home looking smug. The cop who had been nosing around had been removed temporarily from his precinct, and shifted to SVU, to do their 'dirty work' for them. In other words, standing guard over dead bodies, helping in crime scene clean-up, and other nasty little jobs that most cops preferred to avoid. He would eventually be reinstated at his own precinct, Alan had told her benevolently, but only after he'd learnt a little bit of humility, and respect for his betters.

Though she'd dared not show any reaction, Melissa had felt like weeping. The first time someone showed concern, and her husband stomped on them like a bug. She subconsciously stored that young man's name in the back of her mind, though, and now it came to her again, like a candle in the middle of the darkness.

Officer Robert Goren…

She didn't have a direct number to reach him, of course, but her husband had let slip that he was currently assigned to SVU. She knew from the sporadic work stories Alan had told that SVU stood for Special Victims Unit. According to Alan it was the bottom end of the NYPD, the unit that dealt with victims of sexual crimes. Whores and scumbags, in his opinion.

After eight years of marriage to a cop, Melissa was not without some knowledge, and one of those titbits of knowledge that she'd stored away was the rolodex of precinct phone numbers that Alan kept in his study. It was bound to include a number for the Special Victims Unit. Melissa knew her husband well, and she knew he would be inclined to make semi-regular calls to the squad, checking to see how the unfortunate young officer liked his new assignment.

If she could just find the number, then she would find Officer Goren.

The phone rang. Melissa jumped, frightened nearly out of her skin by the unexpected ringing of the phone. It had to be Alan, there was no one else who would call her during the day. Drawing in a long breath to steady her nerves, Melissa answered the phone.

"Hello, Alan?"

"How did you know it was me, Hon?"

"Well, I don't get calls from anyone else."

"No. You don't. What are you doing?"

Melissa felt her anxiety start to rise.

"Just cleaning. Did… Did you forget to leave me a note about what you want me to get for dinner tonight?"

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she was mentally kicking herself. An assumption like that was good for at least half a dozen slaps across the face.

"No, just shut up and listen to me. Did you clean in our bedroom yet?"

"Yes, but…"

"I said shut the fuck up."

Melissa clamped her mouth closed. Wherever he was, it had to be away from his colleagues. Even he wouldn't have dared speak to her like that in front of other cops. As far as his colleagues and buddies knew, he worshipped her to the stars and back. Oh, what a joke _that_ was.

"There's a black sports bag on the floor in my closet. I don't want you to look inside it, or even touch it. Do you understand me?"

She hesitated. For a split second, while her frantic brain tried to come up with the right answer, she hesitated. On the other end of the line, her husband suddenly went very quiet.

"You already looked."

It wasn't a question, and she found that, after years of enforced subservience, she couldn't lie to him.

"Yes."

Her voice was barely more than a whisper. She felt sick to her stomach. God only knew what sort of punishment this infraction was going to bring her, and what frightened her most was the deadly silence on the other end of the phone. Finally Alan spoke again, and when he did it was in a chillingly calm voice.

"You sit down in your chair, and don't you fucking move. I'm going to collect Jason from school, and then I'm coming home. We have to talk."

The line cut out.

Melissa let the phone drop back into its cradle, her fingers suddenly numb. An icy cold wave of panic crashed down on her head and swept down through her body in powerful waves, one after another. A Moment later, a choked sob of fear escaped her and she buried her face in her hands. The threat had just gone well beyond the usual punishments. If he was collecting Jason from school, then…

She turned and stumbled towards Alan's study, suddenly galvanised by the realisation that it was not merely her life in jeopardy, but her son's as well. Whatever Alan was planning for her, he clearly was including Jason in that threat as well. Otherwise, he would have left the boy in school.

_Starting over_… _He's coming home to clean up a mess, and then he's planning to start over_…

She burst into his study and snatched up the rolodex, flipping frantically through the cards until she found the one she was searching for. Heart in her throat, Melissa Scott picked up the phone and dialled the number of the card, praying to God the officer she was after was there.

* * *

_Special Victims Unit  
Squad room_

Officer Bobby Goren sat down with a heavy thud in the men's locker room of the SVU squad rooms. It had been another long night, just another in what had been a long line of many since his so-called 'temporary' transfer from his precinct to SVU. Though his superiors had tried to make out as though it was a big honour for him to be sent there, in reality he knew what it was about.

He had pushed too hard over Detective Alan Scott and his family, and had pissed off one too many of the brass. He knew Scott was well-liked, and well-respected, and his opinion that the guy was a slimy bastard meant nothing to anyone. His assertions that Scott was definitely abusing his wife, and possibly his son too, had fallen on deaf ears. Well, perhaps not strictly deaf. They had heard enough to help them to decide to shunt him off the radar, to SVU.

Now, he worked a night shift that entailed primarily of body watch duty, and all manner of crime scene clean-up. When he wasn't doing either of those things, he was used by the detectives in the squad to do all the sorts of menial duties that were usually reserved for the civilian staff. It was humiliating, and humiliation was the point.

Bobby had no doubt that Scott had pulled strings to make this transfer happen, but what really stung was knowing his captain at the Two-Seven had been happy to see him go, and was in hurry to have him back. So now, he was stuck in a dead-end assignment that had no end in sight, and potentially no job to go back to when it did finally end. And that, he supposed, would only be when Alan Scott, Detective First Grade, forgot about him.

The one redeeming feature of his current assignment was the detective to whom he had been officially assigned, Detective Ben Paxton. Paxton seemed to have taken a liking to him, and he was the only cop in the whole damn squad that didn't treat him like an errand boy.

He looked up as the detective in question came in to the locker room, paused at the sight of him, then grinned and walked over to sit next to him.

"What's the matter, Bobby? They getting to you again?"

'They' being pretty much everyone else in the squad.

"It's okay," Bobby mumbled. Ben clapped him soundly on the back.

"You don't have to keep it to yourself, buddy boy. Not around me. I know they're all being a bunch of pricks, but it isn't going to last. Sooner or later, someone with a bit of clout is going to see how brilliant you are, and then your career is going to absolutely fly. Just don't you quit on me, you hear? Because if you do that, _I'll_ kick your ass."

Bobby laughed softly, and got up, pulling his coat on over his uniform.

"Thanks, Ben."

"No problem. Just don't let it get to you. I've got your back, pal. Ain't no one gonna shove a knife in while _I'm_ watching. Now, you clocking off?"

"Yeah. I just finished a double-shift. Captain Rice had me fill in for Clarke yesterday after he called in sick."

"Crap, I hated doing doubles when I was in uniform. Look, I've just got to hand in my paperwork to Rice, and then I'm off, too. Come with me to Joe's, and I'll buy you a beer."

Bobby hesitated. As much as he liked Ben's company, he was also conscious that Ben was suffering some for his sympathetic treatment of him. Ben grinned up at him. There was a good fifteen years difference between them, and Ben was frequently making jokes about the unfairness of it, in that Bobby was six foot four, and he was only five nine.

"The answer to that is yes, Bobby. Don't make me pull rank on you. C'mon, I'll even buy you a bottle of that German shit you like so much."

A small, shy smile flickered across Bobby's lips as the argument finally won him over.

"Okay. Thanks, Ben."

Ben nodded as they exited the locker room.

"Okay. Wait here, and I'll just drop this crap off. And if anyone tries to pull any of that 'since you're just standing there doing nothing' bullshit, tell them you're off duty, and I'll personally shoot anyone who bothers you."

Bobby couldn't hide a grin as he watched Ben cross the floor to the captain's office. Yes, the one redeeming factor in this whole dismal business was Ben Paxton, and it was one hell of a big redeeming factor.

"Hey, Goren!"

Bobby looked around, gearing himself up to tell whoever it was that he was off duty. A Moment later, his gaze fell on of the other uniforms who worked the front desk phones. That was the one thing they hadn't stuck him with doing, thank God. He knew he'd suck at it, and he suspected that Rice knew that too.

"Call for you, line two," the uniform called. "It's some female, she sounds pretty hysterical."

"Hey, you knocked someone up, Goren?" someone hollered across the floor, and a ripple of laughter swept through the bullpen. Ignoring the laughter and the banal comment, Bobby picked up the phone and pressed the corresponding line.

"Goren…"

"Officer Goren, thank God…"

He recognised the voice instantly, though he'd only heard her speak once, and that had been over a month ago.

"Mrs Scott?"

"Yes."

She was crying, but she didn't sound hysterical to him. Terrified, yes, but not hysterical.

"Is… Is there something I can do for you?"

He could have kicked himself for the asinine question. The fact that she went to the trouble of tracking him down, probably behind her husband's back, screamed that she believed there was definitely something he could do for her.

"Yes, please, I need your help. I think you're the only one I can trust… Can I trust you, Officer Goren?"

"Yes… Yes, you can. What's happened?"

"In his closet… I found it while I was cleaning, but he knows, and he's coming home… Oh god, I think he's going to kill us this time…"

"Slow down," Bobby ordered her. "What did you find?"

"A bag in his closet. It had a knife and women's underwear in it. The underwear had blood on it. I think he may have killed someone."

Bobby's blood ran cold. One of the hot cases at the Moment was a suspected serial killer who had murdered nine prostitutes over the last six months. All had been slashed to death, and the killer had taken their underwear for a souvenir.

"Did you say he knows you found that bag?"

"Yes, he said he was picking up our son from his school, and then he was coming home to… to have a _talk_ with me. He's going to kill us! Please, you have to help us!"

"How long ago did you speak to him?"

"A few minutes, I think… Yes, just a few minutes. I… I found the number for the Special Victims Unit, and I just hoped and prayed you were there. I know why you were sent to SVU, it was because you were trying to help me. I need your help now, please!"

Bobby glanced at the clock. It was just after ten in the morning.

"I'll be there in ten minutes."

He hung up before she had the chance to reply, and bolted across the floor to Captain Rice's office, bursting through the door without stopping to knock first. Adrian Rice and Ben both looked around in astonishment at the unexpected interruption.

"Bobby? What the hell are you doing?" Ben asked, cringing a little at the dark look on their captain's face. Rice stood up slowly, and even Bobby faltered at that. Rice was a big man, and when he actually made the effort to get up, it meant trouble.

"Goren, you had better have a damned good explanation for busting in here like this."

"I'm sorry, Captain, but it's urgent. I just had a call from Melissa Scott."

Rice's frown deepened. "Detective Scott's wife?"

"Yes, sir. She found a bag in her husband's closet with a knife and women's underwear in it."

"Oh, fuck," Ben muttered. Adrian stood frozen. The significance of that was not lost on him, either. Bobby went on, hoping he well and truly had the captain's attention.

"She said Scott knows she found the bag, and that he told her he was going to pick up their son from school, and then he was going home to deal with her. She's terrified he's going to kill her. We need to get out there, sir, now!"

Rice sat back down slowly, staring grimly at the top of his desk.

"We can't help."

Ben swung around to stare at his captain in shock.

"What? Captain, didn't you hear Goren? He could be going to kill her! And probably the kid, too!"

"I heard him, Detective. He said she _thinks_ he's going to kill her. Do I have to remind you that this is a woman who spent a month in a psychiatric hospital after she made insane accusations about her husband?"

"He put her there, Captain!" Bobby burst out. "You know he did! All the reports of abuse from the neighbours…"

"Can hardly be corroborated," Rice cut in firmly. "You've been down this road before, Goren, and look where it got you. Do you want to be booted off the Force altogether?"

Bobby drew in a shaky breath.

"Please, Captain. At least send a squad car around there…"

"You know I can't spare resources like that. Now, you're off duty. I suggest you leave, before I decide to have you thrown out. And don't you dare go anywhere near the Scott house on your own, do you hear me?"

Bobby opened his mouth to protest further, only to be shepherded out by Ben.

"Damn it, Ben…" Bobby argued.

"Shut it, Bobby. I know. C'mon, let's get out of here."

Bobby followed the detective dejectedly. He had told Melissa Scott he would be there in ten minutes. She'd trusted him, and he was about to let her down in the worst possible way.

"Bobby, will you snap out of it?"

He looked around in confusion to see Ben standing a little ways up the street, near his car. The bar they had intended on going to was within walking distance, so why…?

"Will you move your ass, and get in the car?" Ben snapped. "I'm going to have to speed as it is if we're going to beat Scott back to his house."

Bobby nearly tripped on the uneven sidewalk in his rush to get into the car.

* * *

"Thanks, Ben," he said breathlessly, for the third time that morning. Ben looked grim.

"Yeah, well, I never believed that sanctimonious bullshit about Scott treating his wife like a goddess. And I know you well enough now to know you wouldn't have gotten stuck into that case if there really was nothing to it. How did she sound on the phone?"

"Frightened."

"I don't doubt it. Hang on, we're going all out here."

Bobby grimaced and gripped the dashboard for dear life as Ben turned on both lights and siren, and floored the gas pedal.

* * *

When Melissa heard the sound of sirens outside, she cried openly with relief. Alan would never have announced himself with sirens, which meant… She hurried over to the window, and sure enough, a car that was not her husband's pulled up out the front of the house. A Moment later, two men, one whom she recognised as Officer Robert Goren, climbed out of the car and strode across the front lawn to the house. She was just opening to them when a second car pulled into the driveway.

"Oh my god," Melissa whispered, her eyes going wide with terror at the sight of her husband. Bobby and Ben exchanged glances, and positioned themselves carefully in front of Melissa. Alan eyed the scene that greeted him with a piercing stare as he got his son out of the car and carried the little boy up to the porch.

"Well, this is a pleasant surprise. Officer Goren, isn't it? And I'm sorry, I don't know you…"

"Detective Ben Paxton, SVU," Paxton answered firmly, and Bobby felt a rush of relief. Scott didn't outrank Paxton – they were both First Grade gold shield detectives – and Ben didn't take crap from anyone. If anyone could defuse this situation, it was Ben.

"Well, I don't know what either of you are doing here, on my private property, but I'll ask you to leave."

"We can't do that, Detective," Ben answered calmly. "Your wife asked for our assistance. Could you please put your son down, and then we can go back to our station, and discuss this situation properly."

Scott raised an eyebrow, and Bobby felt a slight tremor pass through him at the look Scott gave Ben. The man's rage was building, even if it wasn't showing clearly on the outside. Bobby could sense it as clearly as if he _was_ seeing it.

"I know you're not arresting me. You'd have shown me a warrant by now if that were the case."

Ben glanced grimly at his young counterpart. Here was where the shit hit the fan.

"No, we don't have a warrant, but…"

"Good."

In the next instant, before either Ben or Bobby had a chance to react, Alan Scott pulled out his gun and fired.

Ben went down with a crash, blood rapidly blossoming out across his chest where he'd been shot. In his father's arms, Jason screamed in sudden terror and tried to wrestle out of his father's grip, but Scott wasn't letting the boy go. Bobby pulled out his own gun, and at the same time lunged forward at Scott. He wasn't quick enough. There was a muffled 'ping', and Bobby felt the excruciating pain a Moment later from the bullet wound to his gut.

He collapsed to the porch, his knees buckling beneath him. Dimly, he heard Melissa's screams join those of her son as Scott forced her back into the house and slammed the door behind him, leaving the two officers in their own blood on the porch.

"Get… in there…"

Bobby looked over at Ben. The detective seemed incapable of moving, and blood was already trickling from the corner of his mouth.

"You… gotta… stop him…"

Where he found the strength, Bobby never was able to explain. Hanging onto the doorknob for all it was worth, he slowly hauled himself to his feet and, one hand clutching at the bullet wound in his gut, he twisted the knob with the other. To his immense relief, it opened easily. In his rage, Scott had not bothered to lock the door after him.

Following the sounds of terrified, and agonised screams, Bobby staggered through into the family room, and stumbled onto a nightmare scene.

The little boy was sitting in the middle of the floor, screaming hysterical, piercing cries while, just nearby, his father tore into his mother's body with a knife. Even as Bobby stumbled forward, Scott lifted the knife and, with a final slicing move, slit her throat wide open. She was dead before her body hit the floor.

Then, seemingly unaware that Bobby was even there, Scott turned on his terrified son.

"Shut up! Shut the fuck up, you worthless little shit!"

He swung the knife, and Jason's terrified screams turned into screams of pain as the blade sliced into his thin shoulder, and then sank into his stomach.

Bobby threw himself forward, tackling Scott and driving him away from the boy. The two wrestled briefly, but Scott had the advantage of full strength, where Bobby was rapidly weakening from the bullet wound in his stomach.

His grip on Scott's wrists slipped, and the knife swept down, burying deep in his side. Scott yanked it out and then drove it into Bobby's stomach and twisted it sharply, drawing a howl of pain from the young cop. Scott shoved him roughly away, then, and returned his attention to his son, who had curled up on the floor and was clutching his stomach where he had been stabbed.

Scott was almost on him when Bobby slammed the full force of his body against him, sending the detective crashing to the floor. It was just about all he had strength for. He had nothing left to fight Scott off with, and so he did the only thing he could think of. He covered Jason's tiny body with his own, completely shielding the little boy from his psychopathic father.

For a long Moment, nothing happened. Then, Bobby heard Scott utter a howl of rage, and agony flared through his upper body as the knife sank deep into his back once, twice, three, four and five times as Scott vented his rage on him. A hand finally gripped his hair and yanked his head up, and Bobby knew he was about to have his throat cut. He could only pray that, in the Moment of death, his body would lock in place around Jason, and keep Scott from harming him further.

The sound of a gun firing rang loudly in his ears, and Bobby wondered dimly whether Scott had shot him instead of cutting his throat. A Moment later, though, the hand was gone from his head and the pressure of Scott's body over the top of his own was also gone.

For several long, terrifying seconds, Bobby struggled to rouse himself enough to look around, and finally his questions were answered. Ben stood there, gun drawn and held steady as he pushed Scott over and cuffed his hands behind his back, coughing painfully as he read the downed detective his rights.

"You have the right to remain silent, you piece of shit. You have the right to an attorney. If you can't afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you… If there's a sucker stupid enough to take you for a client."

Shaking his head, Ben collapsed again, dropping to the floor beside Bobby and Jason.

"Shit, what a mess. Bobby, you still with me, buddy?"

Bobby looked up at Ben with pain-filled eyes. He desperately wanted to say something to reassure him, but all of a sudden his mouth wasn't working. In fact, all of a sudden, pretty much nothing was working.

"Hang on," Ben wheezed as he pulled out his radio, and called for assistance. "Help's coming. Just hang on… That goes for both of you."

Bobby managed to turn his gaze downward to the little boy curled up tightly beside him, blood slowly seeping across the floor from his own stab wounds. The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness completely was a pair of dark brown eyes staring up at him from under a matted mop of equally dark brown hair.

* * *

Sometimes, doing the right thing is not always the popular thing. Sometimes, doing the right thing can get you into a whole lot more trouble than if you'd just turned a blind eye. Following your conscience might be great for karma, but it can seriously screw with your career.

For Bobby Goren, his actions saved the life of a little boy and saw a serial killer imprisoned for life, but at a cost to himself that, years down the track during extremely dark Moments of his life, occasionally would have him wondering whether it would have been for the best if he'd just ignored Melissa Scott's call, and left both her and her son to Alan Scott's wrath. The wounds he suffered in the fight to save Jason Scott from his insane father left him hospitalised for nearly five months as he recovered from the nerve damage caused by the knife attack. Upon finally being discharged, rather than returning to either SVU or the Two-Seven Precinct, Bobby found himself suspended indefinitely on part pay and being formerly reprimanded for 'going far beyond the boundaries of what was acceptable behaviour for a junior officer'.

Internal Affairs left him hanging with his future with the NYPD in serious doubt for nearly three months before it was decided not to dismiss him from the Force; and then only after personal intervention from the Police Commissioner who, for the record, was no friend of Alan Scott. He found himself back at the bottom of the ladder, though, returning to the Two-Seven with the rank of a rookie, and relegated to doing the menial jobs normally assigned to a rookie.

He briefly considered quitting, but instead decided to stick it out, clinging to the words of wisdom from the only friend he seemed to have in the Force, Detective Ben Paxton.

As for Jason, he was adopted by his aunt and uncle, who took him right away from New York, to live in California on the other side of the country. And though he would eventually shed his psyche of the nightmares that would plague him for many months afterwards, and slowly rid himself of the worst memories of the brutal attack that took his mother's life, Jason Scott never allowed himself to forget the face of the young officer who shielded him that day from the frenzied knife attack that would have sent him to join his mother in Heaven.

* * *

_tbc..._


	2. Fifteen Years Later

_Major Case Squad,  
One Police Plaza,  
New York City _

Fifteeen years later...

Bobby Goren came to a halt outside the towering building that was One Police Plaza, unable to contain the awe in his expression as he peered upwards. It didn't seem all that long ago that any hopes he'd had of advancing so far within the NYPD had been distant at best, but he'd stuck to the advice of his friend and mentor, Ben Paxton, and hadn't quit. Even when it had seemed pointless, that there were just one too many people in authority determined to keep him down, he hadn't quit. Now, looking up at the impressive building that was his new workplace, he was thankful he'd taken Ben's advice.

He'd met up with his old friend the day after he'd received notification from Captain James Deakins that his application to the Major Case Squad had been accepted. Ben had been thrilled for him, and had insisted on hauling him off to the nearest bar for a bottle of his favourite German beer. He'd almost been happier than Bobby himself, so much so that he hadn't made any of the usual cracks about Bobby's penchant for foreign beer.

"So you finally made it," Ben hooted cheerfully after he'd downed more than a couple of beers himself. "Detective, First Grade! All right, boy, quit holding out on me. I want to see it."

Bobby stared at Ben, puzzled.

"See what?"

"The badge! I want a look at that shiny, new gold shield! C'mon, give it up."

Smiling almost shyly, Bobby pulled his newly-issued badge out and handed it to Ben.

"Look at that," Ben murmured, and there was real pride in his voice that had Bobby blushing red. Ben grinned at him. "I'm so proud of you, Bobby. I really am. Anyone else probably would have up and quit after being dealt all the crap that you were dealt. But you kept at it, and look at you now. About to join the elite of the NYPD… Damn, boy, I could die happy right now."

Bobby took his badge back, his face flame-red and his heart swelling with a joy that he could not remember ever experiencing before. This warm approval and encouragement from Ben was something he'd craved for most of his life, and it was something he had never received from the man who should have been the one to give it. Instead, his father had been coldly indifferent to him for most of his life, making it only too obvious that he didn't give a damn whether Bobby succeeded or failed. And so, for a while at least, he had spiralled into a vicious cycle of taking on new jobs, only to give up and quit them soon after.

He may well have gone the same way with his career as a cop, except that providence had seen fit to cross his path with that of Detective Ben Paxton. The senior detective had been the father figure to Bobby that he had always craved, and that his actual father had never been. Ben had showed interest in him, been kind but firm with him and, above all, had shown him guidance.

Bobby was not a particularly wordy person by nature. He said what he had to, when he had to. Sometimes he liked to think out loud, usually just to clarify the jumble of ideas that churned in his always-active mind, but bad experiences over the years had taught him to reign in that behaviour when he was around other people. It wasn't natural, it made people uncomfortable.

In short, he could never hope to properly express his gratitude to Ben for the way the older man had taken him under his wing, and provided that much-needed and much-appreciated guidance.

Ultimately, it didn't matter. All the thanks Ben wanted from his unofficial protégé was wrapped up in that little gold shield, a very real symbol that Bobby had taken all his advice to heart, and put it to good and practical use; that he hadn't simply sat back on his rear and expected everything to happen for him.

"So, do you know yet who you're going to be partnered with?"

At that question, Bobby had shifted uncomfortably on the bar stool. The prospect of having to go through the motions of growing accustomed to a new partner was the one aspect of his promotion that had him unsettled.

He had been through all that before, upon joining Narcotics five years ago. He had spent nearly two of those five years going through partner after partner, one after another. He still recalled with painful clarity the number of times he had been pulled into his captain's office, and being told his latest partner had jumped ship. He'd gone through seven partners all up when Captain Burns finally pulled him into his office one morning and told him, not unsympathetically, that there was just one more chance for him, and that if he couldn't make this new partnership work, then he would have to leave Narcotics.

One of the long-time Narcs had just lost his partner to retirement, and had graciously agreed to working with Bobby on a trial basis. His name was Odafin Tutuola, Burns had told him with just a hint of a knowing smile, and he took crap from no one. Burns seemed confident it would be a good match.

Bobby had known Tutuola's reputation well enough. The man was damn near a legend among Narcs, and the thought of working with him left Bobby slightly rattled, to say the least. He'd agreed to try, though, suppressing the desire to simply give up, and once more falling back on the wisdom of the man he had secretly come to view as a surrogate father.

It had turned out to be one of the best choices Bobby had ever made. After a slightly shaky start, Bobby and Fin (as Tutuola insisted on being called) had gotten along great. They'd forged a good, trusting partnership that had continued for the next three years. Bobby would recall with disappointment, for many months afterwards, the day that Fin had told him he'd applied for and been accepted to an investigative position with the Special Victims Unit. Ironically, Bobby had mused later on to Ben, the very same squad to which he had been banished some years earlier as punishment.

It had served as a catalyst to get Bobby to act, though. Rather than waiting for the inevitable invitation into the captain's office, and being told he would have to leave Narcotics because no one else wanted to take him on as their partner, Bobby had gone ahead and taken the exams that would see him promoted to First Grade status as a detective. At the same time, he had also put in an application for a position with the elite Major Case Squad.

It was karma, Ben would insist later. After all, Bobby had applied without knowing for sure if there was even a vacancy, drawn to the squad not because it was high profile, but because it was the sort of challenge that his highly intelligent mind craved. Though he was not made aware of it immediately, a vacancy actually opened up in the squad on the very same day that his application landed on the desk of the squad's captain.

The rumour was that no other applicants – and apparently there were many – were even given a look in by Captain James Deakins. Apparently Deakins knew Bobby's reputation for being a little on the odd side, but he was far more conscious of the detective's brilliance for profiling.

Rumour had gotten back to Bobby that some of the brass who still remembered the Scott case had tried to quash both his promotion to Detective First Grade _and_ Deakins' acceptance of his application for Major Case, but Deakins had refused to back down. The brass had eventually given in – Deakins was a top man, with the political clout of the Commissioner to back him up, and none were game enough at that stage to deny him anything.

And so Bobby's appointment to Major Case, in his new rank as Detective First Grade, had gone ahead. But no word had been said to him about who his new partner was going to be…

"Don't know yet, huh?" Ben had asked with a grin. He never ceased to be amused at the way his friend zoned out every so often, becoming completely oblivious to everyone and everything around him. "Ah, well, they'll find someone you can work with, Bobby, don't you worry. And Jim Deakins is a good man, and a damned good cop. You're going to shine at Major Case, Bobby. I'm sure of it."

Bobby let his breath out in a rush, barely aware that he'd been holding it to begin with. Now, he'd come to his first day, and here he was, standing on the threshold like a nervous schoolboy.

Tugging self-consciously at the silk tie which garnished the expensive new suit he wore (another suggestion from Ben), Bobby Goren made his way into the building that was One Police Plaza.

* * *

Detective Alex Eames glanced at her watch for the eighth or ninth time that morning, and looked once more to the corridor which led into the Major Case bullpen. Her new partner was due to start today and she was both curious and anxious to get her first proper look at him.

Detective Robert O. Goren. She didn't know what the 'O' in his name stood for. It had simply been on his file like that. For all she knew, it didn't actually stand for anything.

Yes, she had read his file, once she knew for certain that he was going to be partnered with her. It had been colourful, to say the least. And what really intrigued her was the black mark on his record – an official reprimand and lengthy suspension for some undisclosed infraction that went back some thirteen years, to when he'd still been a beat cop.

It didn't phase her. In all truth, she was quietly relieved to know her new partner was no boy scout. He did have a reputation that well and truly preceded him, though.

The oddball from Narcotics. The freakshow who got results. The defective detective.

Personally, Alex truly despised that last one. If the guy was good enough that Deakins had fought tooth and nail against the brass upstairs to get him, then defective was hardly a word that could be accurately applied. But cops seemed especially prone to gossiping, and so the talk had gone on unchecked.

By the time Deakins called a meeting and asked for volunteers who would be willing to partner the newcomer, no one had wanted to put their hand up for the job. In the end, it was the wholesale rejection by the rest of the squad, and Deakins' whole-hearted belief in the new guy that had spurred Alex to offer to take Robert Goren on as her new partner.

The other guys in the squad had thought she'd truly lost her mind, and had no hesitations about telling her just that. Goren was a freak, they insisted, and maybe even dangerous. Didn't she know he'd been slapped with a reprimand and a three month suspension? Rumour was that he had gotten a senior detective shot.

Ultimately, the warnings of her colleagues only made her all the more determined. Even if the rumour about him getting another cop shot was true, Alex decided there had to be more to the story than what any of them had heard. To make a judgement on rumours alone was insulting, and she wasn't going to fall into that trap.

She recalled with some amusement the Moment when she'd gone to Deakins' office, and volunteered to partner the new guy. In fact, the look on Deakins' face had been priceless.

He'd stared at her for a long Moment before speaking.

"You realise you're the only one so far to offer, Alex?"

She'd smiled wryly.

"Yes, I'm aware of that, Captain. And judging by the talk circulating out there, you aren't going to get any other offers."

Deakins' bemused smile faded rather abruptly.

"Damn. I'd hoped at least some of them might have been willing to ignore the rumours. Well, I do appreciate the offer, Alex…"

"But you're not going to pair him up with me."

Deakins looked at her thoughtfully.

"You think you could handle him? I'm not thinking in the short term either, Alex. Whoever takes Goren on needs to be willing to be in it for the long haul."

Alex had smiled, then.

"I'm good for the ride, Captain."

She'd left his office uncertain of whether she had succeeded in convincing him. Her determination only increased, though, when her fellow detectives discovered that she'd already made the offer to Deakins to take on the new guy, and tried to talk her into recanting. If there was one thing that could possibly make Alex Eames even more determined to see something through, it was being told she couldn't, or shouldn't do it.

So it had been with a mixture of elation and anxiety that she'd received the news that Deakins had decided to pair Detective Goren with her after all. And now, here she was, awaiting his arrival and getting more edgy with every minute that passed.

The truth was that beyond all the rumours and attempts to frighten her off, she just didn't know what to expect. All she knew was her determination not to let herself be intimidated by the new guy, to let him know in no uncertain terms who the boss was, and to prove that all the sanctimonious bastards that she worked with were wrong.

She desperately wanted this partnership to work, but there were so many uncertainties that she truly couldn't begin to guess what lay ahead.

Someone suddenly gave a loud, conspicuous cough, and Alex rolled her eyes heavenward in exasperation. That had to be Ray Gatlin. The guy had the subtlety of a brick to the head. Resisting the urge to glare at him, Alex instead glanced around. A Moment later, her jaw dropped.

Coming into the Major Case bullpen was the biggest bear of a man she had seen for a long time. He wasn't merely tall, but incredibly broad as well, without looking overweight. In fact, she thought as he moved across the floor towards Deakins' office, he looked fitter than most of the male detectives who currently occupied the office. Fit, and strong. She felt confident in her ability to take down pretty much any of the detectives in Major Case despite her diminutive stature, but this guy was something else entirely.

Momentarily forgetting that she was openly staring at him, Alex couldn't keep from wondering, if only for a split second, just what she had gotten herself into.

Then, slowly, the shock passed, and she reminded herself that she had seniority. She would take no crap from him and maybe, just maybe, this was one bozo that might actually learn to respect her as a cop in her own right.

She watched, noting with interest that Deakins actually came out of his office to meet this one, rather than waiting for him to come to the office. So Detective Goren was either something special, or Deakins was just trying to offset the general atmosphere of resentment and mistrust towards Major Case's newest addition.

She watched with unabashed curiosity as Deakins greeted the new detective with a huge welcoming grin, and then ushered him into his office, closing the door behind them. Almost instantly, the chatter started.

"Did you see how big he is?"

"Hell, yeah! Dan from Narcotics told me he was a big guy, and he wasn't kidding."

"How the fuck did he make it to First Grade? Guys that big only ever have half a brain…"

"Hey, Alex, hope you got animal control skills. That guy is one fucking big ape."

Laughter erupted across the floor, and Alex scowled as she turned back to her laptop. Fuck them, she decided angrily. They couldn't even wait until Goren had been introduced to them properly before they started bad-mouthing him behind his back. Well, _fuck them_.

More determined than ever to make the partnership work, Alex sank back into her seat, and waited for Deakins to summon her to his office.

* * *

It took Deakins a split second longer than he liked to recover from his own shock when Bobby Goren finally came around the corner. Though he had been present at the detective's final interview, somehow it had escaped his notice just how big the guy really was.

Height-wise, there wasn't all that much difference between them – perhaps a few inches at the most. But where he himself was fairly thin, Bobby Goren had the broad physique to match his height, making him an imposing sight. The guy was built like the proverbial brick wall.

Well, good, he decided once he'd recovered his decorum. Perhaps his sheer size would make the other Major Case detectives think twice before going ahead with the standard 'hazing the new guy' routine.

He went out to meet the younger man, greeting him with honest friendliness. If everything he'd read or heard about Bobby Goren was true, then the detective had probably picked up on the negativity being directed at him from the occupants of the bullpen. The last thing he wanted was for Bobby to think his presence there was unwelcome. He ushered him into his office, and bade him sit down.

"Did you want some coffee?" he asked as he poured a cup for himself.

"Uh… No… Thanks. I, uh… I had coffee with a friend earlier… before I came here."

Deakins nodded, paying no heed to Bobby's nervous stammering. This was another thing he had learnt about his new recruit, not through official means, but by personally contacting people that Bobby had worked with over the past years. Those that had worked closely with him had all said the same thing. When he was thrust into a new and unfamiliar situation, Bobby Goren was an incredibly shy person.

Sitting back down in his own chair, opposite Bobby, Deakins spoke calmly.

"Well, Detective First Grade, how are you feeling?"

Bobby was silent for a Moment before answering.

"A little scared, actually," he admitted, reddening just slightly. Deakins smiled reassuringly at him.

"Good answer. I'm always suspicious of anyone who walks into a position like this and tells me they feel fantastic. Now, we have a few things to go over before I introduce you to your new partner. I noticed you don't have anyone listed under Next of Kin for us to contact in case you're injured. Now, I know the situation with your mother, but are there no other family members?"

Bobby looked down uncomfortably at his hands.

"There's my… my father, and my brother… But I don't know where they are. I haven't had any contact with either of them for a long time. I… I don't have any other family."

Deakins nodded in understanding.

"Fair enough, but you understand that we have to have someone listed. It doesn't need to be family. What about friends?"

Bobby hesitated for just a moment. Surely Ben wouldn't mind…?

"Detective Ben Paxton," he said quietly. Deakins paused before writing the name down.

"Ben Paxton? I know him. He's a good man, and a damned fine cop."

Jim Deakins' status just went up several notches in Bobby's mind. Deakins finished scribbling down Ben's name, then set his pen down and sat back in his chair to observe the fidgeting detective with interest.

"Tell me, Goren, what exactly are you hoping to get out of joining Major Case?"

"A challenge," Bobby answered without hesitation, and Deakins chuckled.

"You'll certainly be presented with plenty of those here, Detective. But is that all?"

Bobby did hesitate, then. He knew in himself what he wanted, but he didn't want to give Deakins the impression he was there purely for his own ends.

"Speak up, Goren," Deakins told him firmly, startling Bobby back into full awareness. "Always speak up, and don't be afraid to make yourself heard. Even if I don't agree with you, even if we end up in a roaring argument, I'll have more respect for you if you're confident with what you say or do, than if you let everyone else's attitudes form your opinions for you."

"I want respect," Bobby answered abruptly, and forced himself to hold eye contact with Deakins. "And… And to be able to do things my own way. When I was in Narcotics, I went through seven partners before I found someone who didn't think I was a… a freak. Who… Who let me do things the best way I knew how, even if it seemed strange."

Deakins nodded thoughtfully.

"Respect. Fair enough. That's something you'll have to earn from your partner, but if you're honest with her, like you've been just now, I don't think that will be a problem. As for letting you do things your own way… Well, that's going to be up to the two of you to work out between yourselves."

He paused, watching Bobby carefully. He'd deliberately thrown in the reference to Alex's gender just to see how Bobby would react. After all, he'd seen too often a man reacting very badly first of all to having a female for a partner, and secondly when that female outranked them. Bobby, however, didn't even blink.

Deakins didn't doubt that the detective had picked up on that single, innocuous reference, but he showed no adverse reaction at all. All Deakins could conclude was that Bobby simply didn't give a damn whether his partner was male or female, and the fact that said partner outranked him was a non-issue.

Standing, Deakins walked over to the door of his office and looked out into the bullpen.

"Eames! My office, please."

He retreated back against the wall, almost eager to see what Bobby Goren and Alex Eames made of each other.

When Alex walked in, and he finally got a look at the two of them together, it was all Deakins could do not to burst out laughing. They were, by all appearances, complete polar opposites.

She was short and petite; he was tall and broad. She was fair-haired and fair-skinned; he was dark-haired with an almost olive complexion. She was a very outgoing, and sometimes aggressive personality; he was apparently a very reserved and shy person.

Although, Deakins suspected that Bobby was probably anything but shy once he started a case, and set his mind to the pursuit of a suspect.

To Bobby's credit, he didn't blanch, or indeed show any sort of physical reaction when Alex walked in. He stood up quickly, almost clumsily, and offered his hand to her to shake in greeting.

Score one for the new kid, Deakins thought amusedly. He didn't try kissing her hand, or her cheek, the way so many other male detectives tried to do upon meeting her for the first time. The relief on Alex's face told him she appreciated it, too.

"Detective Robert Goren, meet your new partner, Detective Alex Eames."

"P… Pleased to… to meet you," Bobby stammered, his cheeks reddening a little as he struggled to get a handle on his shyness. Alex had to resist the urge to look incredulously at Deakins.

_He stutters_…

"Likewise," Alex replied, looking up at him bemusedly. It didn't escape her notice that he only held her gaze for a few second before turning his eyes away, and looking pointedly down at his shoes.

Their hands remained joined for just a Moment longer, giving Alex enough time to register how warm his hand was, and how strong his grip was. It was a controlled strength, though. He wasn't being deliberately overbearing; just the opposite, in fact. She couldn't help but think that he could do with putting himself a bit further forward, be a little more outgoing. Oh, well. There was time to work on that.

"Detective Eames has been with Major Case for four years," Deakins told Bobby. "She knows all the ins and outs, and you won't find anyone better to learn from."

Alex watched her new partner closely as Deakins spoke. Too often she came up against guys that resented her rank, resented her experience and resented her ability to take charge. And they definitely resented the fact that Deakins approved of all three things – her rank, her experience _and_ her ability to take charge. Watching carefully now, she saw none of the usual resentment in Goren's eyes. It was a promising start.

"Alex, could you show Goren around, show him his new desk, and then introduce him to the general populace? Then I suggest you both get out of here, find a quiet coffee shop somewhere and have the standard 'getting to know you' session."

Alex nodded and stepped deliberately towards the door. Before she had a chance to so much as reach for the doorknob, though, Bobby ducked around her in a smooth, fluid movement that belied his earlier clumsiness and left Alex slightly dizzy, and opened the door for her.

"After you, Eames."

Alex couldn't stop herself from looking at Deakins that time, and could have cheerfully strangled him at the sight of the amused grin that he made no effort to hide. Shaking her head a little, she strode back out into the bullpen, with her new partner close behind.

Deakins stood watching them from the doorway of his office, unable to keep that grin off his face. He'd known what Alex's reaction would have normally been to a man opening the door for her, but Goren had saved himself from an outright rebuke with one little thing, even if neither detective was consciously aware of it.

He had called her 'Eames', in the standard cop practise of calling each other by last names rather than first, and had not automatically assumed he had permission to call her Alex. And as for opening the door for her, that was simple good manners on his part, behaviour that had probably been ingrained in his psyche for most of his life. He hadn't meant the action to be condescending, and Deakins guessed that, inwardly, at least, Alex knew it.

He watched as Alex pointed Bobby to his new desk, the one that was adjoined to her own, and then began introducing him to the other detectives. Finally, deciding he'd been nosey enough, Deakins shut his door and retreated back to his desk.

He was not unaware of the irony in pairing those particular two up. Bobby had admitted to him that he'd gone through seven partners in Narcotics before finally being matched with someone who didn't consider him a freak. What Deakins hadn't told him – it wasn't his place to say, even though the knowledge might have relaxed Bobby a little – was that Alex had gone through a similar trial upon coming to Major Case. She'd come from Vice, and her time there had taught her a toughness that cops didn't learn anywhere else. That, coupled with her natural sarcastic streak and caustic wit, made for a very tough cop, but her natural beauty meant many potential partners misjudged her severely.

The first three partners she'd been paired with had backed away when they realised she wasn't going to 'follow wherever they led her'. The fourth made the mistake of thinking a beautiful woman in such an elite squad must have slept her way there, and was open to any offer that came along. When Alex had told him in no uncertain terms that she wasn't interested, he'd decided she was simply playing hard to get, and tried nailing her in the locker room late one night. He still recalled with a shudder Alex stumbling into his office, her shirt half ripped from her body and the beginnings of ugly bruises on her arms where Saunders had grabbed her. Saunders, it turned out, was still on the floor in the locker room, clutching his balls where Alex had landed a well-aimed kick.

The brass had wanted to cover it up – fire Saunders, of course, but also yank Alex out of Major Case and deposit her somewhere that she couldn't make a fuss. Deakins had put his foot down, literally and figuratively speaking. Saunders had not merely been sacked, he had also been charged with sexual assault. He'd plead not guilty, claiming it was Alex who attacked him, but with Deakins' testimony the creep hadn't had a chance. He'd ended up going to Rikers for the next two years, and had to spend his time in solitary to avoid being killed by the other inmates.

As for Alex, Deakins wouldn't hear of her leaving Major Case. She was too good a detective to let go, and he would have had her working on her own, if that was what it took to keep her. As it turned out, that hadn't been necessary. Her next partner seemed to understand her in a way that none of her previous partners had, and she had finally settled into a good, working relationship with her new partner.

Deakins stared at the window of his office thoughtfully, watching through the Venetian blinds as Alex pulled her coat on, and then she and Bobby headed out together. Maybe Alex wasn't aware of it, but she had just done for Bobby Goren what her last partner had done for her. A smile touched his lips at the realisation. Alex Eames and Bobby Goren had the potential to make a great team, he was sure of it. He only hoped they would each be willing to give the other a fair chance.

* * *

_tbc..._


	3. Revisiting The Past

_A month later_

Jason Scott hated flying. He'd never really been especially fond of flying at any time in his life that he could recall, but certain unpleasant experiences over the past several years had served to cement that dislike, and ferment it into a good, healthy loathing.

When he'd decided to make this trip, though, he'd reluctantly conceded to flying. After all, his father had told him with a barely suppressed grin, wasn't a four hour flight better than a three week road trip? That had been the selling point – Jason hated the idea of a road trip even more than he hated flying.

And so here he was, ensconced as comfortably as he could hope to be in his first class seat on the Red Eye flight from Los Angeles to New York. Admittedly, it wasn't as bad as he'd anticipated. The flight had been relatively smooth so far, with no turbulence or any other disturbances. So far, Jason had been able to sit back, rest and think about what lay ahead.

He was nervous, he didn't deny that. He defied anyone to say otherwise, when they were meeting up with old friends that they hadn't laid eyes on for nearly five years. It wasn't that he wasn't looking forward to the reunion. He was, very much so. It was just that the last time he had seen some of the friends he was now on his way to meet, they had parted on less than civil terms.

A grimace found its way onto his face. That was a pretty monumental understatement, really. The last time he had been together with his best friend, Tommy, they had ended up having a truly explosive argument that had almost come to blows. Jason could not even remember now what the argument had been about. All he knew was that when he had left Angel Grove with his parents for the last time, of all his friends, Tommy was the only one who had not come to the airport to see them off.

That had hurt, he didn't deny it. It hadn't been all that surprising, though. Tommy had always been stubborn and pig-headed… Not unlike himself. His father had often commented that the two boys were twins in every way except looks, and there had been times that Jason would have agreed. Towards the end, though, it had seemed that there had been nothing but animosity between them, and Jason didn't know why. All he knew was that, in the end, they'd not been able to spend more than ten minutes together without erupting into a fight. And, almost always the fights had been about something insignificant that neither had been able to remember later on.

So here he was, on his way to meet up with old friends, including the one friend with whom he'd seemed to be unable to do anything but fight and argue. His father had advised him not to expect too much, but also to be willing to give Tommy a chance. To put what was in the past behind them and start over afresh, if that was what was needed. Jason wanted to, desperately. But his meeting up with Tommy again was not the only thing weighing on his mind.

There was one other person he was hoping to meet up with again, and this particular person had no idea that he was coming. A man from his past… his own personal saviour. This man had literally saved his life, and Jason couldn't possibly go to New York without making a genuine effort to get in touch with him. And in truth, it was that potential meeting that really had his stomach twisting into knots.

Jason sighed softly, inadvertently attracting the attention of the stewardess who happened to going past. She paused, then crouched down beside him.

"I'm guessing you must have a fair bit on your mind, not to be able to sleep like everyone else."

Jason glanced around the cabin. Sure enough, everyone else in the first class compartment was sound asleep, and probably had been for a while. He tried to smile, but couldn't quite manage it.

"I'm going to New York to meet some old friends," he explained. "I guess I'm just a little nervous."

The stewardess, Anna, smiled sympathetically.

"Haven't seen some of them for a while, huh?"

Jason hesitated in answering that.

"No," he said finally. "One especially… I haven't seen him for a long time… Since I was eight years old, actually."

"He must be a special friend, then," Anna said. Jason sighed again.

"Yeah. He saved my life."

Anna smiled again and patted him gently on the shoulder as she stood up again.

"I'm sure he'll be thrilled to see you again, honey. Now, try and get some sleep. We still have a couple of hours before we touch down in New York."

Jason watched her go, then settled back in his seat.

It was true, he was far more nervous at the prospect of meeting with the man who had saved his life so long ago, than he was at meeting up with Tommy and the others again.

Detective Robert Goren… That was his name, the name of the police officer who had saved his life, putting his own life at risk in the process. Jason knew he was a detective now, because his father had made a few discreet inquiries. And not only a detective, but apparently he had just been promoted to Detective First Grade, joining a section of the NYPD known as the Major Case Squad. Jason didn't know exactly what that was, but it sounded pretty important to him.

He was pleased for the detective. His parents, over the years, had made occasional inquiries about Robert Goren's wellbeing with old friends from New York, and not all the reports they'd had back had been good. Apparently, there had been quite a few people who hadn't liked the fact that a lowly beat cop had nailed a top detective as a wife and child beater, and a serial killer. Jason knew it had taken Detective Goren a long time to get to where he was now, and he felt glad that it had finally happened.

The truth, though, was that he just didn't know how Detective Goren would react to seeing him again. Would he be pleased…? Or would he not want the reminder?

Jason knew the detective had been very badly hurt in that final showdown with his father. Though he'd never admitted it to his adoptive father, that last confrontation in which his mother had been killed was one of the few things from his childhood that he still remembered. How could he possibly forget her screams of pain and terror as his father stabbed her brutally, and then slashed her throat? How could he forget the pain of being cut and stabbed himself? And how could he ever, _ever_ forget the giant of a man who had shielded him from further injury with his own body?

Oh, he remembered, all right. He remembered it all with painful clarity.

He remembered that big body curled around his smaller one, protecting him from his father's rage, taking the full force of the brutal knife attack that had been meant for him. He remembered looking up into the face of his protector and saviour after it was over, and feeling the not so childish clutch of fear as the officer's eyes closed, and his body went limp on the floor as he lost consciousness. He remembered the second policeman trying desperately to wake his friend up. He'd still be been trying when the ambulance arrived, along with other police officers.

Then there had been the trip in the ambulance to the hospital. Jason remembered watching in silent fear as the two paramedics worked frantically on the wounded officer, desperate to keep him alive until they got to the hospital. The last Jason had seen of that officer had been as they were both taken out of the ambulance at the hospital, and wheeled in different directions. The last image Jason had of the officer who saved his life was that of a critically injured man being wheeled away on a hospital gurney, covered in copious amounts of his own blood.

It was a vivid image that Jason had carried with him ever since.

And now, he was on his way back to the city where it had all begun. The choice of city had not been his. If he'd had his way, it would have been as far away from New York as possible. But the reason for that decision had been to accommodate two of their friends – Kimberly Hart, who was just finishing off a season of training and competition in New York with the US Pan Global Gymnastics team as one of the team coaches, and Trini Kwan, who had just been appointed to a position with the United Nations office in New York. What it came down to was that it was easier for the rest of them to get to New York than it was for Trini and Kim to leave to go elsewhere.

So Jason had agreed without argument when Billy called to let him know the decision. He wouldn't have been able to argue anyway. The truth was, none of his friends knew the truth of his past, and digging his heels in and refusing to go to New York would have meant explaining why he didn't want to go, and he wasn't prepared to do that. His past was his business, and he didn't care to relive it for anyone.

Not that he thought that they wouldn't understand, but he suspected they might be a little upset that he'd never confided in them. But in the end, it was his business, and his choice. He decided he could cope with a week in New York, and then he could get out of the city, and never set foot within its boundaries again.

In the meantime, the one true saving grace of the trip was the prospect, however unnerving, of meeting Robert Goren again. As nervous as he was at the thought, he was also genuinely looking forward to it. He desperately wanted a new image to replace in his mind that horrible one of the officer, battered and bloody, being rushed away into the hospital.

Jason sighed again, and his eyes slowly flickered closed as sleep finally began to overtake him. It was going to be fine, he reassured himself. It was all going to be fine, and there was nothing to worry about. Nothing at all…

* * *

Tommy Oliver sat down with a thud on the bed in his hotel room, and automatically reached for the TV remote, flicking mindlessly through the various channels for a good minute or two before finally settling on a channel which showed car racing. It was an old race, a NASCAR race from a couple of months ago, but it was better than most of the other crap on television, and he had nothing better to do right then anyway.

Plumping up the pillows behind him, Tommy rested back against the headboard, and stretched his long legs out in front of him, and tried to focus on what was happening on the television screen, rather than on the jumble of thoughts in his head.

He'd arrived in New York a full day ahead of the planned reunion. It meant paying for an extra night's accommodation, but that was the least of his concerns. After his success on the car racing circuit, he could afford a little bit more than he might have been able to five years earlier.

No, he'd come early because he wanted time to sort out his thoughts before meeting with all his old friends. More specifically, he wanted time to sort himself out before he met up with Jason again.

Realising dimly that using the car race on the television to distract himself was a contradiction to the very reason he had arrived early in the first place, Tommy finally switched the TV off again, and lay down flat on the bed, staring up at the ceiling as he tried to think things through.

He frowned a little to himself. Though he would never have said so aloud, thinking had never been his strong suit. He didn't see that as a negative thing, though. He saw himself as a doer, not a thinker. He was just the type of guy who liked to take action, not sit around talking about it. That was for others to do. It was one of the main reasons he was seriously looking at leaving behind his career as a racing driver, and joining the army. He liked having set instructions, a specific idea of what he had to do, and not having to waste precious time debating the morals of whatever decision had been made. That was something Trini and Jason had always been inclined to do, and it had always annoyed him no end.

He grimaced again at the thought of his old best friend. As much as he was looking forward to seeing his other friends again, he just didn't know how much he was really looking forward to seeing Jason again. Their last meeting had been less than friendly. In fact, if he remembered rightly, they had come damned close to trying to punch each other out. An outright, physical fight had only been prevented because he'd had the guts to walk away. At least, he was pretty sure that was how it had played out.

He just didn't really remember, and neither was he sure that he wanted to.

There had been a time when he and Jason had been as close as twins, even to the point where they had been able to finish each other's sentences. But that had all changed when Jason had returned home from the United Nations Peace Conference in Switzerland.

Jason had been gone for months, and Tommy had missed his presence bitterly. He'd been ecstatic when he'd received an email from his friend, saying that he felt he'd done all he could, and that he was coming home for good. Then, Jason had actually arrived home, and Tommy soon had the first inklings that not all was rosy with their relationship.

Upon arriving home, Jason had seemed surly and irritable, brushing off Tommy completely. Jason's father had tried to tell Tommy to give Jason time to readjust to being home, but Tommy had strongly sensed even then that the changed dynamics in their relationship were irreversible. That was something else. He may not have been much of a thinker, but various events had left him almost hypersensitive to the way others were feeling. And there was no disguising what he interpreted as Jason's feelings of resentment towards him.

Still, Tommy had tried to rekindle their friendship, and for a while it seemed that things were back to normal. But as time went on, Tommy came to sense resentment from Jason, and a growing hostility. Why, he didn't know. All he knew was what he felt was a steadily increasing anger from Jason towards him.

Tommy believed he'd tried hard to set things right with his friend, but it seemed to him that Jason hadn't wanted to try at all. Every time they got together, Jason would initiate yet another argument. At least, he was pretty sure Jason had initiated them. He was fairly sure none of it had been his own fault. He'd wanted to give his friend every chance and he had done just that, hadn't he? But Jason had been the one to reject it all.

Sure, Jason had gone through a bit, but Tommy felt he had more reason to complain than Jason did, and yet he'd never complained once.

In the end, Tommy simply hadn't known what to do, and had finally given up altogether. And so, eventually, the inevitable had happened, and the two friends – former friends, it seemed – had finally gone their separate ways. And Tommy had heard nothing of Jason in the five years since, though he expected Jason had to have heard of his success in the car racing industry.

Now, they were being thrown back together again by their well-meaning mutual friends, in the guise of a reunion.

The prospect of meeting with Jason again had almost been enough to encourage Tommy to refuse to show. It had only been Trini's pleading with him that he had finally consented to going. If Jason wasn't civil, though, he would cheerfully pack his bags and go home, though. He'd made that blatantly clear to Trini over the phone. He wasn't going to take any crap from the golden boy, not for anyone or anything.

Tommy sighed softly and rolled over onto his side, adjusting the pillows beneath his head.

He wished things had turned out differently, he really did. Jason had once been the best friend that he had always dreamed of having before his family moved to Angel Grove. But as his father said, sometimes things fell apart and there was no real explanation for why. All you could do was pull yourself together as best as you could, and just try to get on with your life.

That was what he was doing, getting on with his life, and no one was going to stop him from doing that. No one.

* * *

_Stanhope Institute and Correctional Facility  
__Two weeks prior_

"Look at you, Mr 'I've got the Parole Board eating out of my hand'!"

Alan Scott looked around, a tight smile on his lips as one of the orderlies paused in the doorway of his room.

"Hi, Danny," he greeted him. Danny Ellis took another step inside the room, and looked around with mild amusement at the now bare walls of Alan's room.

"So you're finally leaving us, and going back out into the world. You think they're ready for you, man?"

For just a split second, the amiable smile twisted into a sneer. Then the Moment was passed, and Alan shrugged a little.

"I don't know. I guess the question is, am I ready for it?"

"Ah, you'll be fine. You've got all your meds sorted out, and your doctor and parole officer will help you settle back in. You know all the rules and what you can and can't do. It'll be fine. So, you need any help packing?"

Alan shook his head.

"No, thankyou. I'm fine."

Danny nodded, and started back out of the room.

"Okay, then. Well, I'm finishing my shift now, and I guess when I'm back on duty you'll be gone. It's been good working with you, Alan. And don't take this the wrong way, but I hope I don't see you again."

Alan smiled and nodded.

"No offence taken. Thankyou for everything, Danny."

He watched as the orderly disappeared out the door, then carefully shut the door after him. Once shut inside the privacy of his room, Alan pulled three scrapbooks from the shelf where the few books he owned also sat. The books he didn't give a damn about. They could burn them for all he cared, but he wasn't wasting space in his bags trying to fit them in. The scrapbooks, however, were vital.

Inside one was all manner of inane, apparently pointless things – drawings, mindless pieces of writing and pictures of all manner of sweet things that he'd cut out from magazines and newspapers. The kind of things that made his psychiatrist happy, and made him sick to his stomach. This was the scrapbook that he took with him to his therapy sessions.

The other two looked identical to the first, but their contents were vastly different. Their contents would hopefully help him achieve the two deeds that had been on his mind from the Moment he had been pronounced guilty at his trial some twelve or thirteen years ago. The two deeds that had been gnawing away at his mind and soul for thirteen long years.

He paused, staring at the two scrapbooks, his hatred fuelled purely by the thoughts of what lay inside. After a Moment, with a brief glance at the door, Alan sat down and began flipping slowly through the first scrapbook.

There was not much in this particular one, mainly because the subject had long ago moved to another state entirely, and Alan was strongly reliant on old friends obtaining the articles and photos that occupied it. But still, there was enough.

His breath escaped him in an angry hiss as he found a more recent photo towards the back. There was his son, grown into a fine, strong young man, raised by his scum brother and sister in-law, in place of himself. The anger, the rage filled Alan quickly, and he had to make a conscious effort to force it back down. He was to see his psychiatrist one last time before being released from custody, and if there was so much as a hint of rage in him, he'd be locked up again faster than he could blink.

Besides, his son was no longer the immediate object of his rage and hatred, and it was pointless focusing on him in that way right at the Moment. No, better that he should turn his focus to his other target, the one that he actually had a chance to eliminate.

Alan opened up the second scrapbook, and his blue eyes darkened with hatred as he looked at the photo of the police officer who, in his opinion, had almost single-handedly been responsible for his incarceration. Robert Goren… The name was forever burned into his subconscious mind, and Alan doubted he would ever be able to put the man out of his mind until he'd taken a suitable revenge.

A suitable revenge… A hint of a smile curled the corners of his lips as he imagined everything he wanted to do to the cop who had effectively stolen his life. Robert Goren was going to truly know the meaning of pain, by the time he was done. Alan's only debate was how to go about extracting his long-desired revenge.

He still remembered with absolute clarity years ago, arriving home with his son to find those two cops already on the doorstep, shielding his bitch wife, as though she deserved protection. That had been the catalyst to tip him over the edge, though. He'd only planned to beat her, to make sure she never spoke of what she'd found. Getting home to find that she'd already blabbed tipped him into a more violent rage than he'd ever experienced.

When they'd refused to get out of his way, when that asshole detective actually had the balls to try and give him an order, he'd simply given in to the red haze descending on his vision, pulled his gun and shot the jerk. Then that young cop, Goren, had tried to stop him, and he'd shot him as well.

That should have been the end of it. He'd hauled his wife and son inside and left the two cops bleeding on the porch. He'd dispatched his bitch wife and was just about to start on his screaming brat when Goren had come out of nowhere and tackled him. He hadn't seen the cop come in, which only spoke for how much of a rage he was in. Because with a bullet wound like the one Goren had, he sure as hell couldn't have snuck up on anyone who was paying attention.

Really, it hadn't been much of a fight at all. He'd gotten the upper hand pretty quickly, and stabbed the cop a couple of times before pushing him away. Then he'd been about to finish the job with his son when he was pushed out of the way by Goren once more. Instead of trying to fight him this time, though, the guy had used his body to shield Jason. Alan had seen red, literally, and launched a frenzied attack on Goren. To the cop's credit, he held out until his partner staggered in, and shot his attacker.

Alan had taken a bullet in the leg, and the sheer pain had immediately rendered him helpless. His only pleasure at that point, after being cuffed by that piece of scum from SVU, had been lying there watching as the asshole tried to help his little buddy.

He'd known better to hope that the young cop would die, but what he hadn't expected was that Goren would rouse himself from his sick bed in hospital and come to court to testify against him. And, in the end, it was that testimony from the weakened and wheelchair-bound officer that had tipped the jury over the line to rule against him. Not the case put forward by the prosecution, and not even the trembling testimony delivered by his eight year old son via video-link to the courtroom. No, Alan sincerely believed it was the rock-solid testimony of the cop that had sent him to prison in the end. And he would have his revenge for that, one way or another.

Alan closed the scrapbook, and slipped all three into his bag. The first he would continue to display to his shrink as a sign of how well he was doing, and how placid he was. The other two would serve as a refresher for his hatred and anger, until he was able to carry out his revenge against the two people that he held responsible for taking his life away from him.

The cop, and the brat.

A satisfied smile tugged at his lips as he resumed packing his meagre possessions in preparation for leaving the institute. Wasn't the cop going to be surprised when they finally came face-to-face. Thanks to old, loyal friends, he'd been successful in getting his lawyer to appeal his sentence and, with the testimony of his shrink, who was _one hundred percent positive_ that Alan was rehabilitated, and quite stable with his medication, a judge had ruled that he had the right to apply for parole. He had done so promptly and again, thanks to those friends in power, no one of significance had been made away of his possible release. In particular, the bastard cop that had caused him so much trouble in the first place.

The cop was a detective now, according to one of his friends who had visited recently. He'd just made Detective First Grade, and was leaving Narcotics after five years to take up a new position with the Major Case Squad. That had pissed Alan off even more, though he'd kept his anger carefully hidden behind a façade of perpetual contentment and amiability. He himself had applied three times to get into the high profile Major Case Squad when his life had still been something worth bragging about, and each time he had been soundly knocked back. To hear that Goren had gotten in on his first try only increased his determination to cut the cop down to size – literally, if need be.

The man was definitely going to hurt, Alan would see to that. He would take him apart, if need be. And then, when he had dealt with Goren, then he would go after his bastard son. He didn't give a damn whether he went back to prison for the rest of his life, as long as he had fair opportunity to carry out those two tasks. He was going to find the cop, and the brat, and kill them both, and nothing was going to stop him.

A small, grim smile flickered across his lips and, with fresh determination in his heart, he hurried to finish packing, looking forward the Moment when he set foot outside the gates of the institute, and his new life's purpose could finally begin.

* * *

_tbc..._


	4. Reunions

Jason sat in silence, listening half-heartedly to the chatter of his old friends as they exchanged stories about what they had been doing for the last five years. In truth, Jason was finding it all deathly boring, but simple manners kept him from simply excusing himself and walking out. It was getting harder, though, to stay looking interested when the reality was that he wanted nothing more than to escape – by just about any means necessary.

It wasn't that he didn't want to see his friends again. It had been nice to catch up with them… or rather, with some of them. But after spending a couple of hours in such close proximity to Tommy was starting to remind him of why he'd been so relieved to eventually leave Angel Grove. Even they'd spoken no more than half a dozen words to each other the entire time, the tension was rapidly reaching unbearable levels.

"Jason, you've hardly said a word all afternoon," Trini chided him, her light voice drawing him reluctantly back to the present. "We've all talked about what we're doing at the Moment. Aren't you going to tell us what you've been up to?"

Across the table, Tommy made an unintelligible noise behind his hand that sounded suspiciously like 'nothing at all'. Jason spared the young man a frosty look, then spoke quietly.

"I'm joining the police force."

Startled silence met his words, and then Zack Taylor chuckled.

"Should've known. Someone like you, Jase? It's the only logical choice, isn't it?"

"Oh, yeah," Tommy muttered. "Jason, the great protector. Perfect choice."

"Tommy, don't be an asshole," Kim said calmly. "Jason, that sounds great. When are you going to apply?"

"I already have," he admitted. "I put in an application with the police academy in San Diego. I got a letter of acceptance a couple of weeks ago. When I go home, I'll have a couple of days to sort everything out, and then I'll go straight into the academy."

"That's great news," Trini said warmly. Billy nodded.

"Yes, it's exceptionally prodigious news, Jason."

Jason looked across at Billy for a Moment before a grin broke out across his face, and he laughed openly.

"Haven't changed much, have you, Billy? You're still a walking dictionary."

Billy's own grin widened.

"No, not really. I don't down that speech thing a long time ago. But you've been so damned quiet and morose, I figured it was time someone tried to get a smile out of you."

Jason chuckled softly.

"Thanks. I'm sorry, guys. I don't know what's wrong. I'll try not to be so damned miserable, okay?"

That wasn't entirely true, he reflected as the chatter around the table resumed. He knew what was bothering him, but there was nothing he could do about that until the next day. The bottom line was, he was filled with an almost desperate desire to go to One Police Plaza in Manhattan, where the Major Case Squad was apparently located, and try to meet up with Robert Goren. Since landing in New York, the desire to see the police officer again had become nearly overwhelming, but out of respect for his friends he'd made the decision to put _that_ reunion off until another day.

He took a sip of beer to hide his grimace. Actually, it had nothing to do with respect for anyone. He just didn't want anyone at this table knowing about that part of his life, and that would become unavoidable if they knew of his plans to track down a police detective who worked for one of the city's highest profile squads.

He just wasn't willing to risk them finding out. It was just too damned personal.

Setting his beer down on the table, he looked up and found himself locking stares across the table with Tommy. The other young man's stare was as hostile as they came, and the hatred that he read in that gaze was unfathomable. He honestly didn't understand. Was Tommy somehow jealous of him because of the attention he'd garnered? Or was it simply seeing him again that set off old resentments?

He looked away again, in no mood to deal with the other man's attitude. All of a sudden, any appetite he might have had was gone, and he realised he just couldn't stay at the table any longer. All he wanted was to get back to his hotel room, have some time to himself, and get up the courage to go and find Robert Goren the next day.

He rose up abruptly, drawing surprised and confused looks from the others.

"Jason?" Kim asked gently. "Is something wrong?"

He shook his head, trying to smile but feeling like a jerk for lying.

"No, it's okay. Look… I'm just really tired. I think I might go back up to my room… Just try and get a good night's sleep."

"Well… Okay, if that's what you want to do," Trini said quietly. It was all Jason could do not to cringe. She didn't believe his excuse, and he knew it. He tried again to smile, but his effort was half-hearted, and quickly stymied when he once again found himself locking stares with Tommy. The cynical look on the guy's face was almost more than he could bear. Finally, he wheeled around and hurried from the restaurant, pausing just long to tell the concierge to charge his bill to his room.

He never looked back, and if he had he would have seen Tommy get up and, with just a brief word to the others, follow him from the restaurant.

* * *

"Jason."

Jason froze in the lobby at the familiar, unwanted voice. After a Moment, he turned slowly to face the one who had come after him.

"What is it, Tommy?"

Tommy slowed to a halt, staring at him piercingly.

"What is with the attitude, bro? This was supposed to a friendly get-together."

Jason drew in a slow breath that did little to calm him in the face of Tommy's hostility.

"What attitude? I said I was tired."

"Yeah, sure. And maybe you could do us all a favour and not treat us like idiots. What's it really about? Jealousy, maybe?"

Jason stared at Tommy incredulously.

"Jealousy over what?"

"Me."

"You… You think I'm jealous of you?"

"C'mon, man. I'm successful, I've got money… And you've done what with your life?"

"That's my business, not yours," Jason growled, trying hard to take a pull on his temper. "I came here to catch up with everyone, not have it out with your ego."

Tommy bristled visibly.

"Ego? That's a low blow, Jase. C'mon, why don't you just admit that compared to the rest of us, your life is pretty much a complete flop! This bullshit about going into the police force now… Is that the only thing you could get? After all that attention as the star of Angel Grove when you got chosen for the Peace Conference, I bet it's a real come-down, isn't it?"

Suddenly, Jason found he had to struggle not to laugh out loud.

"Sounds to me like you're the one who's been jealous, Tommy. And I've done plenty over the last five years. Unlike you, though, I just don't feel I need to prove to anyone that I've done anything worthwhile. And I sure as hell don't have to prove anything to you."

Turning around, Jason headed for the lifts. A Moment later, a hand alighted on his shoulder and dragged him roughly to a halt.

"Don't turn your back on me, bro."

Jason looked back at Tommy with such an intense stare, that the other man quickly released his grip.

"I'm not your _bro_, Tommy. I stopped being your bro about five and a half years ago, when I came back from Switzerland, and you decided I was a threat to your authority."

"You're fucking nuts, Jason."

"Am I? Am I really, Tommy? Why don't you wake up and smell what you've been shovelling? Back when we were still in high school, after you came along and joined the group, you took over from me as leader. I didn't object to it. You made a good leader, and everyone respected you. That was fine by me, and you knew I had your back. We had a bit of rivalry, but that was all. It was no big deal. Then I left for Switzerland, and you had absolute control. When I came back, you were fine with it at first, but then you decided pretty damn quick that you didn't like the possibility of having to share again. You didn't even bother to try and find out if I was even interested in taking control again, which I wasn't. You just assumed, and then you went all hostile on me. Now, you're doing it again, and I'm not taking it, Tommy. Just… back off, okay?"

Tommy stared at Jason, unnerved by Jason's accurate perception.

"I… You… You must think you're pretty fucking smart, huh?"

"I'm not getting into a pissing contest with you, Tommy," Jason said coldly as he turned back to the lifts. "I'm going to go up to my room, and go to bed. Then I'm going to spend tomorrow on my own, away from you all, and you can have a pleasant little reunion without me to spoil it for you. Then, the next day we'll all do something together, and maybe if we try really hard we can get through the day without trying to kill each other. After that, I'm going home, and I won't be sorry if I never set eyes on you again." The lift doors opened, and Jason stepped inside. Only then did he finally turn to face Tommy fully. "Goodnight, Tommy."

The doors slid shut a very explicit signal that the conversation was over. Tommy stood staring at the closed door for a long Moment before walking over and thumping the up button on the wall. Fine, he thought furiously. If that was how Jason felt, then he'd grant his wish and do a disappearing act right then. He wouldn't even wait until morning, just in case he ran into the son of a bitch by accident the next morning. He would pack his bags that night, check out, and go home. Let Jason explain to the others why he'd gone. Maybe then they'd realise he wasn't so fucking wonderful after all.

The lift took him up to his floor, and he stomped out and down to his room in fury. In his anger at Jason, Tommy never noticed the light shining out from under his door. He opened the door and strode into the room, ready to pack his bags and clear out.

He was barely inside the room when an arm was suddenly around his throat, cutting off vital air. Almost before he had a chance to register that there was someone else in the room with him, that arm snaked up around his face, yanking his head back hard. Tommy saw a glint of metal reflecting the light of the room, and then there was a fiery pain across his throat, followed rapidly by the strange sensation of drowning as blood spilled out of the open wound across his throat.

It was over in an instant. The arm that held on so powerfully to the young man finally released him, and Tommy's lifeless body crumpled to the floor. His killer stood over the body in silence for a long minute, observing his work with cool interest before putting his knife away and dragging the body away from the door and over to the bed. Then, confident that everything was as it should be, he left the room quietly and calmly, taking care to hang the 'do not disturb' sign on the outside of the door as he went.

* * *

_The following morning_

One Police Plaza wasn't hard to find. An inquiry with the concierge the next morning had Jason finding his way there on the subway in fairly quick time. Now, he came to a halt outside the tall building, looking up at it with a mixture of nerves and excitement.

He'd left the hotel early that morning, forgoing breakfast in favour of getting out before any of his friends – Tommy, in particular – surfaced. He didn't care to have to explain to any of them why he wasn't spending any time with them today. Let Tommy be the one to tell them. Although, he reflected ruefully, that probably wasn't such a hot idea, either. Tomorrow he would probably find that Tommy had spun them some bullshit story about… well, Jason didn't know what.

He decided abruptly that he wasn't even going to think about it anymore. Let Tommy go ahead and do or say whatever he liked. He didn't care. All he wanted right then was to deal with the one true reason that he had agreed to come to New York.

Clenching his jaw, Jason walked up the steps and into One Police Plaza, approaching the reception counter before he could talk himself out of it.

"Can I help you?" the young man behind the counter asked, smiling pleasantly at Jason.

"I was wondering if Detective Robert Goren was available to talk to," Jason answered, half-expecting to be told no, or to simply get lost. The young man promptly picked up a small notepad and pencil instead.

"Your name?"

"Jason Scott."

"Business?"

I, um… He's an old friend. I was hoping to… to catch up with him."

The young man raised an eyebrow just fractionally, showing a hint of scepticism. Then he pointed to a row of chairs along the wall.

"Have a seat over there, please, sir. I'll see whether Detective Goren is available to see you."

Jason wandered over and sat down with a thud. It suddenly occurred to him that the detective might not even be in the building. In which case, he supposed all he could do was leave a contact number, and hope that the detective remembered him, and called him. He hoped he was there, though. He didn't particularly fancy having to go back to the hotel, which more than likely meant running into his friends. That was something he just didn't fancy, not at all.

A shadow fell across him, and he looked up to see the young man standing there, holding out a visitor's badge to him.

"Please put this on. Detective Goren requested that I take you straight up."

Jason let his breath out in a rush and pinned the badge to his shirt pocket. Then, standing up, he followed the young man to the lifts.

* * *

"You know, you can't put off the paperwork forever."

Bobby looked up at Alex, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. She was regarding him with a smirk, and a Moment later he knew why. She had almost finished her own pile of paperwork, while his still sat on his desk, waiting for him to start.

"I can try."

Alex chuckled softly to herself and shook her head. With every day that passed, she was becoming more certain that she'd made the right choice in offering to take Goren on as her partner. Where the rest of the clowns who worked for Major Case treated her like a sort of mascot, simply because she was the only woman there, Bobby Goren treated her like an equal. Any of the others, after her comment about the paperwork, would have suggested they were waiting for her to offer to do it, but not Bobby.

She watched in amusement as he sighed comically and pulled the first sheet of the pile and started to look it over. He hated paperwork as much as she did. Hell, no one liked paperwork. But, it was an unfortunate necessity. It had to be done, and putting it off only meant a build-up that usually resulted in having to stay late on a Friday night. And that was something that not even workaholic Bobby Goren liked doing.

She'd found the last month or so, since he started at Major Case, to be very interesting. Although, interesting was probably a massive understatement. Eye-opening might have been a better choice of phrase. On his first day, as Deakins had suggested, they had exited One Police Plaza and made their way to a little coffee shop a couple of blocks away. She'd ordered coffee for the both of them, an exotic brand of her choice, and he had paid. Not an arrangement of her choice but she'd sensed that, like with his opening the door for her in Deakins' office, it hadn't been some misguided sense of 'I am the man, you are the woman'. Rather, he was just trying to be polite. She guessed he probably would have paid regardless of who had partnered him.

The conversation that followed had been fairly superficial to start with as they felt each other out. Then, getting tired of the tiptoeing around each other, Alex threw at him much the same question that Deakins had asked him earlier.

"Why did you want to join Major Case?"

Bobby had stared at her for a long Moment before looking back down at his coffee.

"I wanted… I _needed_ a challenge."

"And Narcotics wasn't doing it for you?"

To his credit, he actually smiled at her snarky question. Most of the other cops in Major Case never seemed to know how to take her sarcasm and her attitude. That he smiled at her quip was promising.

"Narcotics was good… Actually, it was good while my partner was still there. Fin Tutuola… We worked well together. But he got himself a transfer to SVU. It meant I'd have to go through the motions of finding a new partner, and I knew there wasn't anyone who'd be willing to… I mean, I'd been through all that before Fin agreed to work with me, and I knew that if no one would work with me, then I'd have to transfer somewhere else… I just decided I wasn't going to wait and see."

"In other words," Alex said bluntly, "you jumped before you were pushed."

He nodded, looking genuinely embarrassed.

"Y… Yes."

She didn't smile, or laugh. She understood how he felt better than he realised.

"I suppose you noticed when you came in that most of the detectives there weren't all that receptive," she said quietly. Bobby nodded, his gaze still fixed firmly on the tabletop.

"Yeah… I noticed."

"Well, don't worry about them. Most of them as assholes anyway. My opinion, and Deakins' opinion are the only ones you need to worry about. And as for me, you've made a pretty good start."

He'd looked up at her, then, curiosity and hope written clear on his face. She offered him a crooked smile.

"Just always be honest with me, Goren, and I think we'll get along just fine."

Now, more than a month and two cases down the track, she still hadn't forgotten that hopeful smile that lit up his face, sending a wave of warmth through her body.

It hadn't all been plain sailing to start with, of course. With the advent of their first case together, Alex had finally gotten an eyeful of why Bobby had such a notorious reputation. Deakins had sent them to a crime scene the day after Bobby started working at Major Case. She had been busy talking to the patrol officer who had been first at the scene, when the young cop's eyes widened. She'd turned to see what had startled him, only to find her partner crouching low over the body of the victim, sniffing at the corpse's fingertips. She'd simply stood and stared at him, not knowing what to make of the sight. When he'd finally looked up and seen her staring at him, a strange look came into his eyes.

At the time, she hadn't understood what that look was, but upon their return to Major Case, realisation had finally dawned. That look in his eyes had been resignation. He thought she was going to dump him as her partner.

He'd stared at her openly as they returned to their desks, and Alex had taken it for nearly five minutes before looking up at him in frustration. She hated being stared at by anyone, and if he had something to say, she wished he'd just damn well come out and say it.

"What is it, Goren?"

He'd looked taken aback.

"I… Uh… Nothing…"

Her expression softened at his visible embarrassment, and she spoke more gently to him.

"If it's about your little show at the crime scene, I wouldn't be too worried about it. I've seen some strange things in my time here. I'm not going to turn tail and run just because my partner has a weird fetish for sniffing corpses."

Again, to his credit, he'd grinned in reply, and once again Alex had felt that small surge of warmth through her system. She felt much like a girl scout who'd just done her good deed for the day, and her reward had been ample in watching her partner cheer up noticeably.

It puzzled her, this odd protectiveness that seemed to have come over her. In the end, though, she decided it wasn't worth stressing about, and simply decided to ride the wave, and see where it took her. Now, over a month down the track, things seemed to be working pretty damned well.

The phone rang, and it took her a Moment to realise it was Bobby's phone that was ringing, and not her own. Looking torn between wanting to ignore it so he could make a proper start on the mountain of paperwork in front of him, and being grateful for the interruption, Bobby finally picked up the handpiece – almost dropping it in the process – and spoke detachedly into it.

"Goren."

Alex watched her partner's expression wordlessly, her curiosity leaping when he suddenly sat up a little, his attention well and truly grabbed by whatever he was being told over the phone.

"Right now?" he asked, more than a touch of excitement in his voice. "He's down there? …Yes, please, bring him straight up. …Thankyou."

"Old friend?" Alex inquired curiously when he hung up. Bobby stared at her for a long Moment, and she could see in his eyes that he was debating over what to tell her.

"Sort of," he said finally, quietly. "It's a boy that I helped out about thirteen years ago… His name's Jason Scott. You might have heard of his father… Detective Alan Scott."

Alex gaped at him as the pennies suddenly all dropped into place, and she finally understood what the other detectives had been talking about when they'd spoken of trouble early in Bobby's career.

"So _that's_ what the rumours were all about!"

A puzzled, wary look clouded his eyes.

"What rumours?"

Alex hesitated, then spoke in a low voice, not caring to attract the attention of their fellow detectives.

"_You're_ the cop that nailed Scott for those serial killings thirteen years ago. Damn, I should have known!"

Bobby said nothing, still staring at her with an openly wary look. Alex finally registered that look, realised he was expecting negative reaction from her, and smiled reassuringly at him to let him know she wasn't feeling at all badly towards him in light of this newest revelation.

"Relax, Goren. I think you did the right thing, even if there were a lot of assholes around at the time that didn't. That bastard was a sadist, and he needed to be taken down."

When he still looked uncertain, she added with a grin, "Believe me, you were a hero in our house while that was in the news, even if we didn't know who you actually were. I remember my dad saying that any beat cop who had the balls to take on a senior detective to try and protect a mother and her child was a hero in his books."

By then, Bobby looked more embarrassed than wary.

"It… It wasn't really me, so much. The detective I was assigned to… Ben Paxton… He was really the one…"

"Bullshit. I remember the stories, Goren, very distinctly. And the story was that a beat cop got into some serious shit because he refused to turn a blind eye to the fact that a detective was using his wife and kid for crowd control practise. So what happened? Are you going to tell me?"

Bobby shifted uncomfortably.

"I… We didn't save his mother. Scott cut her throat before I could get to him. He was going to kill Jason as well… "

"And you took him down?"

"Ben did," Bobby mumbled. "I wasn't exactly in a position to do anything. He… He'd already been shot, but he still managed to take Scott down. He's the one who deserved the credit for saving Jason. Not me."

Alex watched him thoughtfully. She knew without a doubt that there was more to the story than he was letting on – far more. But now was not the time to push for details, she thought as her gaze went to the entrance to Major Case, where one of the civilian admin workers was leading along a young man.

Alex sat back in her seat and watched as her partner crossed the floor to meet the young man. She watched as the two shook hands enthusiastically. Unable to contain her curiosity any longer, Alex got up and went to join them.

Bobby saw Alex's attention divert to the entrance of the Major Case bullpen, and he looked around in time to see a young man being led into the Major Case area. For just a split second, the thought raced through Bobby's mind, _that can't be him_, as he mentally compared the tall, muscular young man to the waif-like eight year-old from his memory. Then he saw the young man's eyes, and for just an instant he flashed back to that Moment when they'd been lying on the floor together, staring at each other silence, each rendered immobile by their individual injuries. He knew those eyes, there was no mistaking them. It really was him…

He got up quickly and crossed the floor, nodding a quick thanks to the admin staff member.

"Jason?"

Jason offered the detective a nervous smile.

"Hi… uh… Detective Goren?"

"It's just Bobby, please… I… I mean, I didn't expect to see you again."

Jason shrugged. "I got suckered into coming to New York for a reunion, so I figured I'd at least do something worthwhile while I was here… And besides, I never had the chance to thankyou… for saving my life."

Bobby's smile widened a little, and his cheeks flushed red.

"I'm just glad you… you came through all right."

Jason nodded.

"Yeah, I did, thanks to you and that other detective."

"Goren…?"

He looked around as Alex joined them, a curious smile on her face.

"Uh… Eames, this is Jason Scott. Jason, my partner, Detective Eames."

"Nice to meet you," Alex said, shaking hands with the young man. She looked up at Bobby. "I imagine you two must have lots to talk about. Why don't you get out of here, and go somewhere where you can talk?"

Bobby looked back to Jason, who nodded tentatively.

"Okay," Bobby said with a small smile. "Let me just grab my jacket."

* * *

As soon as they were out of the building, Alex headed straight back to her desk and began to search the police database. She had a general idea of the timeline, and she knew the names of the officers involved (now), but not much more than that. Eventually, though, it was in searching under the perp's name, Alan Scott, that she finally got a result.

She sat back a little, a frown creasing her features as she scrolled through the reports. Most of the reports were fairly superficial, for the most part just glossing over the details of the case. Someone's idea of keeping the brass happy, she supposed with just a touch of bitterness.

The further she read, the angrier she got. The reports all said much the same thing – that the actions of the officers involved had been unnecessary and detrimental to the department, but that the prime responsibility for any embarrassment suffered by the NYPD lay with one Officer Robert Goren.

Alex let her breath out in a rush. The bastards, she though heatedly. He'd stopped a serial killer, and they hung him out to dry for it. It was a wonder he'd stayed with the NYPD, she thought morosely, after having something like that slapped on his record, and probably only because the brass were embarrassed that they'd been shown up by a beat cop, of all people.

She sighed softly. She thought she'd had it tough coming up through the ranks, but clearly it hadn't been all plain sailing for her partner, either.

Alex was about to log off the database when she spotted one more report, one that she'd very nearly missed altogether. It was a report specifying the injuries incurred by the two police officers involved. According to this report, Ben Paxton had received a bullet wound to the chest. That was the extent of his injuries. Bobby, however…

She stared at the report in disbelief, stunned by what she was reading. Bobby had been shot in the abdomen, then stabbed a total of eight times. Exactly how those injuries had been incurred, though, was not included in the report. Alex could only assume that Bobby had been in one hell of a fight with Scott. She shook her head incredulously.

Paxton had been the one to finally take down Scott, she thought ruefully, but she was betting that her partner probably held Scott off from attacking Jason until he did.

"I wondered how long it would take you to find that."

Alex looked back over her shoulder to find Deakins standing there, watching her calmly. She shook her head, frowning deeply.

"It's a wonder he ever made it to the rank of detective, the way they hung him out to dry."

"He's had to fight hard to get where he is now," Deakins agreed. "It's the main reason why I hope your partnership works out, because this is Goren's last opportunity."

Alex looked up at him, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"I had a call from the Chief of Detectives the day after I accepted Goren into Major Case. He wasn't happy about it, and he tried damned hard to talk me out of it. When I refused, he said outright that if it didn't work out, for whatever reason, then Goren was finished with the NYPD."

"That son of a bitch," Alex growled.

Deakins was silent for a long Moment before speaking again.

"I'm not telling you this to put pressure on you, Alex. I just want you to understand. He's fought to get this far, and by rights he should have gotten his promotion to First Grade years ago… but thanks to some of the jerks upstairs, you might just be his last chance."

Alex frowned a little. She understood what Deakins was saying, but it was hard not to take it too personally. To be told she might be largely responsible for whether or not her partner was able to continue his career with the NYPD was not exactly what she needed to hear. Still, she thought she could go some way to assuaging her captain's concerns.

"I can't tell you what the future is, Captain," she told him quietly, "but I can say that so far everything is good. He's not exactly your Average Joe, but we're getting along okay."

Deakins stared at her for a long moment.

"Do you mean it, Alex? Because I meant it when I said I didn't want to pressure you. If it really isn't working, I don't want you feeling obliged to say otherwise."

She smiled in amusement.

"Relax, Captain. We're doing okay. I think I'm going to have my hands more or less full with him, but it'll be okay. Truth is, I like him. He doesn't treat me like the rest of these guys do."

A smile quirked the corners of Deakins' mouth. He knew exactly what she meant by that.

"Like an appendage?"

"Exactly. And as long as he keeps on like that – treating me like a detective, not an accessory – I think we'll do just fine."

The relief on Deakins' face was palpable.

"Okay, then. But you'll come to me if there are any problems?"

She couldn't quite keep the grin off her face.

"If he starts hanging upside down from the rafters, I'll be sure to let you know."

Deakins laughed softly and headed back to his office. Alex watched him go, then logged off the database, and got back to the task of finishing off her paperwork.

* * *

"Well, this blows one theory out of the water."

Bobby looked questioningly at Jason as he ordered coffee and fresh bagels for the two of them in the little coffee shop that he and Alex frequented.

"What theory is that?"

"Cops and donuts."

Bobby grinned in amusement.

"Oh, we save the donuts for special occasions. Like all-day lectures and conferences."

"All the boring shit?" Jason wondered, and Bobby laughed aloud.

"Yeah, something like that. Come and sit down."

The two found a corner booth out of the way, and soon found themselves staring at each other in open curiosity.

"It's funny," Jason said with a small smile. "You're still as big as I remember."

"Oh?"

"I know, it seems a stupid thing to remember, but that really stuck in my mind. I remember lying on the floor, with this enormous man lying over the top of me… protecting me. You took most of the attack that was meant for me."

Bobby's smile had faded almost completely, and he regarded Jason soberly.

"You remember that much?"

"Yeah… And it's a lot more than I've ever let my Mum and dad know about."

Bobby frowned, then, until Jason quickly elaborated.

"My aunt and uncle, I mean. They adopted me. They're my Mum and dad now."

"They're good people," Bobby murmured, recalling the kind couple that had come to see him in hospital before taking Jason away, out of New York. "You were lucky to have them."

"I know," Jason agreed. "I still am lucky. They've been great, and I love them a lot."

"So what are you doing in New York?" Bobby asked. "I wouldn't have thought you would ever have willingly set foot here again."

"Normally I wouldn't have, but a couple of friends organised a reunion of sorts, and they decided to have it in New York. I was going to say I wasn't coming, but then Mum reminded me that it'd be a good chance to find you… and thank you."

"Jason, you thanked me by surviving. I'm just sorry that I wasn't able to save your mother as well."

"That wasn't your fault," Jason said firmly, his voice almost a growl. "It was _him_. You did everything you could, and then some. I would have been dead too, if it hadn't been for you and that other detective… but especially you."

To Jason's amusement, Bobby appeared to be blushing. His suspicion that the detective was embarrassed was confirmed when Bobby abruptly switched the subject back to the reunion that Jason had briefly mentioned.

"What sort of reunion is it? Not a school one, I'm guessing."

"Not exactly. Just a group of us that used to be friends in high school. Although, I'm kind of wishing that I hadn't met up with them now."

"Not so pleasant memories?"

"In a way," Jason admitted. "One of the guys… Tommy Oliver… we used to be best friends, but then something happened. I'm still not sure what. But towards the end of high school, and just before my folks and I moved to San Diego, it seemed like we only had to be in the same room, and it nearly ended up in a fight. It was the same last night. We were just having dinner. I left the table early, and Tommy followed me. Next thing I know, we were almost shouting at each other in front of the lifts."

"It's tough when friends fall out," Bobby mused. Jason gave a short, bitter laugh.

"I'll say. I'd just like to know why." He paused, then smiled ruefully and shook his head. "But I don't want to talk about that." He threw a wry grin in Bobby's direction. "That was slick."

Bobby took a bite of his bagel, and tried to look innocent.

"What do you mean?"

"One second we were talking about what happened thirteen years ago, the next we're talking about my reunion. Are those the kinds of tricks you pull with suspects?"

Before Bobby had a chance to reply to that, a new voice spoke behind them.

"Oh, for sure. He just loves messing with their heads."

Both Bobby and Jason looked around to see Alex standing there, an apologetic smile on her face.

"Eames…?" Bobby asked tentatively.

"Sorry, kids," she apologised to them. "Goren, we've got a call-out. You'll have to continue this later."

Bobby started up, then looked back to Jason.

"Which hotel are you staying at? I'll get in touch with you there."

"I'm at the Crest Hotel, on Fifth Avenue."

Bobby nodded, oblivious to the odd look that flickered across his partner's face.

"Okay, I'll call you there this evening."

Jason nodded amiably. "Okay, Det… Sorry… Bobby."

Bobby smiled and, with a nod to Jason, hurried after his partner.

* * *

"I found the case."

Bobby looked at Alex, puzzled.

"Sorry?"

Alex hesitated, wondering how to put it without getting offside with him. Finally, she decided to simply be straight-forward.

"The Scott case. After you and Jason left, I looked up the case on the police database."

Bobby fell abruptly silent, his gaze fixed on the dashboard.

"I wanted to know the whole story," Alex said quietly. "I didn't mean to overstep…"

"You didn't," he interrupted suddenly. "You… you have every right to know… But those reports don't give the full story."

Alex glanced at him curiously. "So what is the full story?"

For a long Moment Bobby didn't speak. Finally, though, just when Alex thought he wasn't going to answer at all, he began to speak in a low, sad voice.

"I first came into contact with the Scotts when I was sent to their home to answer a call of domestic disturbance. Scott answered the door. At first he tried to get all buddy-buddy with me… You know, the whole 'you don't turn in a brother' thing? When I didn't buy that, he tried to brush me off. I asked to speak to his wife, wouldn't leave until I did. He got pretty well pissed off at me, then, but he brought his wife out. Melissa Scott… She had a huge bruise on her face. Said she'd got it walking into a door, or something like that…"

Beside him, Alex gave a derisive snort, and Bobby smiled grimly.

"That's what I thought, too. Anyway, I couldn't do anything, then. Scott pulled rank on me, and threatened to report me to my superior officer if I didn't leave. The next day, I started pushing with the brass to initiate an investigation."

"And they stonewalled you."

"Totally. Scott whispered in a few ears, and the next thing I knew, I'd been removed from my precinct and dumped with SVU."

"SVU? To do what?"

"Any odd job they wanted to push on me. Basically, the whole idea of it was to humiliate me… teach me my place."

"At the bottom of the ladder, huh?" Alex muttered, feeling sourer with every minute that passed. Bobby nodded reluctantly.

"Yeah. That was where Scott wanted me, where I couldn't cause him any problems, and where I couldn't do anything to help his wife and son. All because I didn't want to turn a blind eye."

Alex regarded him thoughtfully.

"So what happened after that?"

"I'd been at SVU for about two months, I think… Melissa called me there. She was terrified. She said she'd found a bag in her husband's closet with a knife and… and women's underwear."

"The Bronx Killer," Alex murmured. Bobby nodded.

"Yeah. Melissa made the connection almost straight away, but Scott found out that she knew, and he was heading home… to _deal_ with her. She begged me for help, she was terrified that he was going to kill her, and her son. I went to the captain at SVU, and he told me to forget about it, that there was nothing we could do. Son of a bitch wouldn't even send a car around. I was ready to argue… probably would have gotten myself fired for it. But then the detective that I'd officially been assigned to at SVU, Ben Paxton, he hauled me out. We went around to the house together, got there just ahead of Scott. Ben tried to take control… He was the epitome of good manners. But Scott… he was in a rage. He…. He pulled out his gun, and he shot Ben in the chest. Then he… he shot me in the gut. He took his wife and kid inside… We could hear her screaming from outside the house. Ben… He told me I had to get in there. I had to stop him. So I… I got up… I don't know how, but I got up, and went inside."

"But Melissa was already dead," Alex guessed. A pained look crossed Bobby's face.

"Not quite. He slit her throat just as I got to the family room. She was… She was dead before she even hit the floor. Then he turned on Jason. He stabbed him a couple of times before I got there. Then I tackled him… but I was already weak from being shot. He got the upper hand pretty quickly. He stabbed me a few times and then pushed me away. He was going for Jason again, and I managed to get enough strength together to push him away once more… But I didn't have the strength for anything else. So in the end, the only thing I could do was cover Jason with my own body."

Alex stared at him in shock. That was something that hadn't been in the reports.

"You used yourself as a shield?"

"There wasn't anything else I could do," he said softly. "I… I really expected to die then. I was just hoping that… that when I did, my body would lock around Jason, and Scott wouldn't be able to get to him."

"Jesus, Goren…"

"Scott went nuts. I think he stabbed me maybe four or five times…"

"Try eight all together," Alex said. Bobby winced a little.

"Was it that many? I don't really remember. Anyway, there was a gunshot, and then Scott fell away from me."

"Paxton to the rescue?"

Bobby smiled faintly, understanding there was no malice in her tone.

"Yeah. He saved my life."

"Okay, so you stopped Scott, and saved Jason. What happened then? Obviously you didn't get any standing ovations from the brass."

A bitter look flashed in Bobby's eyes.

"You know, that's really the only time I seriously considered quitting? When I got out of hospital, I was informed that I'd been suspended indefinitely on partial pay while IA investigated my, quote, _insubordinate actions_. Unquote. They left me hanging for three months before they decided to reinstate me, and only then with a demotion back to rookie status. I'd been with the NYPD for five years at that stage, but I had to start over literally from scratch after that. Ben got an informal reprimand, but that was all. The brass put pretty much everything on me. And when I did eventually become eligible to be promoted to detective, it took me four tries before I was successful."

Alex bit lightly on the inside of her cheek as she pulled up outside the Crest Hotel.

"You really have had to fight to get to where you are, haven't you?"

He smiled a little.

"No more than you probably have."

She looked across at him, renewed respect in her eyes firstly for the way he'd handled the hand he'd been dealt, and secondly that he freely recognised that she, too, had earned her place through pure hard work and determination.

_How about that_, she thought with a widening smile. _I have a partner who doesn't subscribe to the buddy-boy system._

"Well, just for the record," she said finally, "I'm glad you didn't quit."

The smile that lit up his face, albeit briefly, was more than enough reward for her thoughtful remark.

"C'mon, Goren," she said, reaching for her door handle. "Move your ass, partner. There's a crime scene waiting for us."

Bobby grinned with an eager anticipation that drew a brief but genuine laugh out of her, and followed her into the hotel.

* * *

"That's a hell lot of blood," Alex said flatly as she stood in the doorway of the hotel room. Bobby ventured in, peering down at the trail of blood that began just inside the door, and led all the way over to the bed, where the body had been found.

"The killer was waiting just inside the door when the victim came in. He jumped him right here… Cut his throat… then dragged him over to the bed. It was fast and brutal, probably only took a few minutes."

Alex nodded her thanks to the uniformed officer who handed her an information sheet on the victim. A glance revealed that Bobby was already over at the bed, looking closely at the body. She barely suppressed a grin as she began to read off the sheet.

"Our vic is one Thomas Oliver…"

Bobby looked up sharply before she had a chance to go any further.

"Thomas Oliver? _Tommy_ Oliver?"

Alex shrugged. "I suppose so. You know the name?"

Bobby frowned a little.

"Yeah, I do. Jason mentioned the name… one of the people that he was meeting for a reunion."

Alex's eyebrows shot up as she looked down at the dead body.

"Really? Interesting. Did he say any more about it?"

At that, Bobby hesitated. Alex moved forward slowly, watching her partner piercingly.

"What else did he say, Goren?"

"He said he had an argument with the victim last night, after dinner."

A look that Bobby had come to clearly recognise descended on Alex's face, and he stood up quickly.

"Jason couldn't have done this."

"Why, Goren? Because he was a victim once himself?"

Bobby had begun to look agitated, she thought bemusedly.

"No… But if he'd killed his friend last night, why would he come looking for me this morning? Why bring unnecessary attention to himself? Why tell me that they'd had an argument?"

Alex sympathised with him, she really did. Placed in his position, she supposed she would have been reluctant to believe that the young man who had met them that morning was capable of taking a life. On the other hand, grim experience had taught her not to discount any possibility, and Jason Scott certainly had the height and strength to do such a deed.

"Maybe we should call Deakins, and pull ourselves off this one," she suggested. Bobby paused in recommencing his examination of the body. Finally, he looked up at her grimly.

"No, we don't need to do that. We'll follow it where it leads us, and if it leads us back to Jason… well, then so be it."

Alex nodded, satisfied with his resolve.

"Okay, then. When you're ready, we'll go and speak to the friends…"

She trailed off as a familiar voice reached their ears from out in the hallway.

"No, damn it! Let me past! That's my friend in there!"

Bobby looked up at her ruefully, then abandoned his examination of the corpse, and followed his partner out into the hall.

* * *

Jason arrived back at the hotel to find chaos. There were a couple of police cars, an ambulance… and wasn't that the same SUV that Bobby's partner had been driving when she picked him up from the coffee shop? He headed in, and was halfway across the lobby when he spotted his friends sitting huddled together on a couple of couches that lined the far wall. After a Moment's hesitation, he went to join them, noting wordlessly as he got closer that Tommy was not there. It was only as he got up close, though, that he finally saw their tear-streaked faces and shell-shocked expressions.

"Hey, guys…"

Kim looked up at him, and Jason started a little, caught by surprise at the ferocity in her expression.

"Where the fuck have you been?" she exploded, pulling away from Zack and launching herself to her feet. Jason stared at her, dumbstruck.

"I… I was catching up with a friend. Why? What's happened?"

"It's Tommy," Kim said bitterly. Jason couldn't stop himself and, in retrospect, he supposed she should have been more tactful, but at that stage he'd still been stinging from his argument with Tommy the night before.

"What happened? The stupid son of a bitch finally OD on all those drugs he's been pumping into his system ever since we finish high school?"

The sound of Kim's palm hitting his cheek sounded eerily like a bullwhip being cracked. Jason's head rocked to the side from the force of the slap, and when he recovered enough to look, he found himself staring into not one, but four accusing stares.

"Where were you, Jason?" Zack asked quietly, and this time Jason heard the suspicion in his friend's voice.

"I told you, I was meeting an old friend," Jason growled, suddenly on the defensive and not liking it one bit.

"Who?" Kim demanded to know.

"An old friend," Jason snapped. "Who is my business."

"And were you meeting with that friend last night, too?" Zack asked tersely. Jason looked at each of them, confused and angry.

"No! I was in my room, sleeping! Look, what the hell is going on? Where is Tommy?"

"He's dead," Trini answered, watching Jason with a piercing stare. Jason blanched, his face going white in a matter of seconds.

"Dead…? No way… That's not possible…"

"He's dead, Jason," Billy said in a numb voice. "I found him this morning. His… His throat was cut. He's dead. And I think you might find the police want to talk to you about where you've been."

The implied threat went straight over Jason's head. He stood frozen for several seconds, digesting what he'd just been told, before turning and bolting for the lifts.

He strode into the first one available, waiting impatiently for it to open on the fourth floor, where Tommy's room was. He stepped into the hallway, and was immediately confronted by a couple of large uniformed police officers, both of whom blocked his path to Tommy's room.

"You'll need to go back the way you came, young man," one of the two cops told him. "No one's permitted through here just at the Moment."

"I have to get past," Jason protested. "That's my friend's room…"

"You can't go any further," the cop told him in a firmer tone. "You'll need to wait downstairs in the lobby with everyone else."

"No, damn it! Let me past! That's my friend in there!"

The cop's gaze hardened.

"Look, kid, if you don't back off, you're going to get yourself arrested. Do you hear me?"

"It's all right, Officer," a voice called out, and Jason wasn't sure whether or not to be relieved when he spotted Bobby and his partner, Detective Eames, coming down the hallway towards them.

"We'll take care of this," Alex said firmly, and ushered Jason through and into an empty room a couple of door down from Tommy's room. Bobby followed wordlessly, watching with uncertainty as his partner geared herself up to tear into Jason.

"Is it true?" Jason asked hoarsely, looking from Alex to Bobby. "Is Tommy dead?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so," Alex said, her voice flat and emotionless. The consummate cop, Bobby thought ruefully. He hoped Jason had nothing to hide from them, because otherwise, he wasn't going to know what hit him.

"We need to ask you a few questions, Mr Scott," Alex went on calmly.

"Let me guess," Jason interrupted, his voice starting to sound strained. "Where was I last night? I was in bed, asleep."

Alex raised an eyebrow at him.

"And how, exactly, do you know that he was killed last night and not earlier this morning?"

Jason blanched in the face of her near-blunt accusation, but recovered himself admirably.

"I assumed. I'm human. Humans do that occasionally. As far as this morning goes, you already know what I was doing this morning."

"We know what you were doing from the moment you actually arrived at One Police Plaza," Alex corrected him, causing Bobby to wince a little.

"Eames…"

She shot him a look that warned him to keep quiet. He fell back, trying to keep his agitated fidgeting to a minimum. Alex returned her attention to Jason, who had sat down with a thud in a nearby chair and buried his face in his hands.

"You had an argument with the victim last night."

It wasn't a question. Jason looked up, past Alex to Bobby, who had the good grace to blush. He looked back at Alex, and held her gaze as he answered.

"Yes, I had a fight with him. It was totally verbal, and it basically came down to male egos clashing. He thought I was jealous of his success, and he wouldn't believe it when I denied it. We threw a few insults at each other, and then I went up to my room. The last I saw him, he was standing outside the door of the lift in the lobby. As soon as I got up this morning, I got dressed and headed straight for One Police Plaza. I never saw any of my other friends. I was deliberately trying to avoid them, because I was still feeling pretty pissed off about Tommy's attitude last night, and I didn't want to have to face any of them."

Alex stared at him critically. His story was pretty vague in her opinion, and yet had enough element of truth in it to come across as fairly rock solid. As much as she wanted to take him with them back to One Police Plaza for further questioning, instinct warned her against it. Best that they bide their time for the Moment, continue to gather evidence and information and then, if the path of suspicion still led to Jason, then deal with it accordingly.

"Okay," she said, stepping to the side. "You can go, but don't go far. We'll probably want to talk to you again."

Jason stood up and walked slowly to the door. He paused, looking up at Bobby as he passed him.

"I didn't kill Tommy. I've spent most of my life doing everything I could to make sure I didn't turn into a replica of my father. I _didn't_ kill Tommy."

Bobby watched him go, and then turned back to Alex to find her staring intently at him.

"C'mon," she said flatly, walking past him. "Let's finish up here, and get back to One Police Plaza."

He withheld a sigh as he turned and followed her from the room.

* * *

_tbc..._


	5. Disturbing Revelations

"I don't believe Jason had anything to do with Tommy's death."

Alex let her breath out in an audible sign of frustration.

"That's pure speculation, Goren. You damn well ought to know better than to decide a person's guilt or innocence on gut instinct."

"All the same… I don't think Jason did it, and he's not hiding anything from us."

"Goren, you're a smart guy, but you aren't omniscient."

"You think he's guilty."

"I just think we need to keep our options open. You might not like it, but it's entirely possible that he did actually do it. Like it or not, it's in his blood."

"You mean genetics?"

"I guess so."

"Like father, like son?"

Alex glanced sideways at him as she guided the SUV through the heavy traffic.

"Yes, now that you mention it."

"No."

Alex couldn't contain her surprise at his outright rejection of the theory.

"No?"

Bobby was looking out the window, then, and seemed in no hurry to look back at her.

"You can't label someone on the basis of what their parents have done. It's wrong. Alan Scott is a killer, but why stick his son with that tag? If that were true… that genetics ruled our lives like that… then none of us would be free. We'd all be locked up in prison, or in the psyche hospitals, because every family has someone who's committed some sort of terrible crime."

"If I didn't know any better," Alex said thoughtfully, "I'd say you were speaking from personal experience."

Bobby looked back at her fleetingly, then out the window again. It was enough, though, however brief. In that instant, she was sure he was talking from personal experience, but at the same time decided it was his business, and he would share it with her when he was good and ready.

"I'm just saying, don't judge Jason on the basis of what his father has done."

She glanced at him piercingly once more.

"I'm going to speak to Deakins when we get back. You're too close to a potential suspect. We should be handing this case over to someone else."

Bobby tensed visibly.

"I can handle it, Eames."

She couldn't hide her scepticism from him, and nor did she try.

"Can you, Goren? Can you really stay objective? You took a knife attack for that kid. What are you going to do if the evidence says he's the one who's committed this murder? Can you really look me in the eye, and tell me you won't have a problem with arresting him for it?"

He didn't speak, but stared wordlessly out of the side window. Alex sighed faintly.

"Okay. Let's just agree to disagree, all right? And we'll talk to Deakins about this when we get back."

Bobby said nothing, but continued to stare silently out of the SUV's window.

* * *

Deakins was watching for Bobby and Alex as they came around the corner into the Major Case bullpen. Even from his office, he sensed the rift, and his heart skipped just slightly as he wondered what could have happened to set them on edge with each other.

Great, he thought dismally as he retreated to his desk and picked up the letter that had been delivered to him less than half an hour ago. They were going to absolutely _love_ this aggravation, on top of whatever disagreement they'd had.

He looked back to his door just as Alex appeared in the doorway, with Bobby just behind her.

"Come in, both of you," he told them. "Goren, shut the door, would you? And both of you, have a seat."

Both Bobby and Alex exchanged puzzled looks. Surely Deakins couldn't have somehow found out already about their little disagreement? Or even about Bobby's connection to the murder they'd just been assigned to investigate?

Deakins looked from Alex to Bobby, his face grim and pale.

"I have something to tell you both. It's primarily for you, Goren, but it involves Eames as well, since she's your partner. Just promise me that you won't hit the roof, because I promise you that I've already done that."

Bobby stared at him apprehensively.

"What's it about?"

"Alan Scott's been released from prison on parole."

Bobby sat frozen, staring at Deakins in abject disbelief.

"That… That's not possible. Captain, it isn't possible! He was sentenced to life, without parole! And what do you mean, _been_ _released_? He's already out?"

"The parole hearing was three weeks ago," Deakins answered grimly. "He was released two weeks ago. And in answer to your question, Goren, I don't know. I'm still trying to get answers. From what I've been able to find out so far, and it isn't much, some of Scott's more powerful friends pulled some strings high up, and got his case before an appellate judge. How they pulled it off, I don't know, but the point is that he's out."

Bobby sat stiffly in his seat.

"I should have been told he was going before a parole board. I had the right to be there, to speak…"

"I know," Deakins agreed. "Damn it… Here, look at this."

He handed Bobby the letter he'd been clutching, and waited wordlessly while the big detective read through it.

"What is it?" Alex asked as Bobby read it in silence. Deakins explained.

"It's a letter notifying Goren of the parole hearing. It was apparently sent to his original precinct, the Two-Seven, two weeks before the parole hearing. They should have sent it on to us immediately, but it somehow got lost under a mound of other crap."

Bobby muttered something under his breath that Deakins couldn't quite catch, but was sure it was not in English. He decided not to press for a translation, considering he had a reasonably good idea of what it was he'd probably said anyway.

"Goren, that isn't all," Deakins said quietly. Bobby looked back at him slowly. Deakins picked up a scrapbook that had been sitting innocuously on his desk, then continued to speak. "Scott's missing. He failed to report to his parole officer three day after his release. When his room at the boarding house was searched by the officer, this was found hidden behind a wall heater."

Goren reached out and took the scrapbook from Deakins. This time, as he opened it up, Alex got up and moved over behind him to look as well.

"You've got to be kidding!" Alex burst out after Bobby had flipped through a few of the pages. "They seriously thought this guy was okay to let out of the nuthouse?"

"I know," Deakins agreed. "The problem right now, though, is that we have a man out there on the streets who appears to be dangerously obsessed with you, Goren. We need to decide what we're going to do about it."

Bobby looked at Deakins for a long Moment, then looked back down at the scrapbook pages that were open in front of him.

It was an article from two and a half years ago, a little more than six months after he'd started working with Fin. They'd led an undercover operation together, and though the operation had resulted in a perfect number of arrests and subsequent convictions, it hadn't been without its downside. The downside being that at the time of the arrest, one of their targets had pulled a gun and fired at Fin. Bobby had pushed him out of the way, only to be hit by the bullet himself. It had punctured his lung, and he'd damn near drowned in his own blood before staff at the hospital where he'd been taken managed to get the bullet out and repair the damage.

The article itself didn't bother Bobby, though, so much as the words scrawled onto the page next to it.

_**Should've aimed at his head**_

There were more articles throughout the scrapbook, almost completely filling it, and they covered the length of Bobby's career more or less from the time of Alan Scott's incarceration at the Stanhope Institute. Every article that specified an injury that Bobby had received on the job had a similar comment attached, while plainly vicious and insulting comments filled the pages that contained regular articles about solved cases that had been attributed to Bobby.

"Look at the last page," Deakins told him grimly. Bobby hesitated, then flipped to the final page. He stiffened visibly at what was there, and Alex gasped aloud in shock.

At the end of the scrapbook, in blood red ink and covering the entire page and inside back cover, was the following scribbles, written over and over again.

_**KILL HIM CUT HIM TEAR HIM SLICE DICE BLEED HIM DRY SHRED HIM FLAY HIM KILL THE FUCK WATCH HIM DIE WATCH HIM BLEED WATCH HIM CHOKE DEAD KILL HIM DEAD KILL HIM KILL HIM KILL HIM KILL HIM**_

Over, and over again…

Bobby closed the book, and handed it back to Deakins. He was a little pale from the shock of the news, Deakins noted, but admirably calm. In all honesty, Deakins had expected him to go absolutely ballistic. He was pleased that Bobby had managed to control his anger. It boded well for him for the future.

"So he's obsessed. It doesn't surprise me, it's no big deal, just ranting…"

"Goren, that wasn't ink," Deakins interrupted quietly. "It's already been analysed. It's written in his own blood. And if it's just ranting, then it's very targeted ranting, and you aren't the only target."

Bobby fell abruptly silent, waiting for an answer. Deakins gave it reluctantly.

"There's a scrapbook that indicates a threat against his son, as well. It suggests that Scott might be intending to go after his son, but that he might also be planning to attack anyone that Jason is close to, in order to hurt him as much as possible."

Bobby and Alex looked at each other, their eyes widening slightly in realisation. Deakins saw the look, and realised something had just occurred to them both.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Sir, Jason Scott is in New York right now," Bobby explained. "I met up with him this morning. He's here meeting a group of old high school friends for a reunion."

"And that case you handed us this morning just happens to be those old high school friends," Alex added. It took only a second for Deakins to add two and two.

"Christ, he's already started."

Alex glanced again at Bobby, half-expecting him to give her the standard 'I told you so' look, but she saw nothing of the kind in his expression. Rather, he sat staring at his hands, his face pale from the shock of what they'd just learned. Her heart went out to him, but she restrained herself from touching him in any way, not wanting to over-step the boundaries of their fragile, fledgling partnership.

"Goren, I'm putting you and the son into protective custody," Deakins said.

_That_ drew a reaction. Bobby looked up, startled.

"What? No! Sir, with all due respect, I'm not going into hiding just because some piece of scum out there has a grudge against me."

"I'm asking you to lay low, Goren," Deakin growled, "not go into witness protection. It isn't hiding out, it's staying safe!"

"I appreciate your concern," Bobby said tersely, "but I won't do it."

"I could order you to," Deakins reminded him. Bobby flinched a little, but didn't back down.

"Yes, sir, but then you'd have to charge me with insubordination, because I'd still refuse."

Deakins looked to Alex, hoping to get some help from her quarter, but there was none forthcoming. She was too busy watching her partner with a mixture of amusement and respect.

"Okay," Deakin conceded finally, trying unsuccessfully to hide his frustration. "All right, I'll let it go for the Moment. But you both get yourselves back to that hotel, and make sure that Jason and his friends don't go anywhere. Oh, and Goren…?"

Bobby looked back at Deakins as he and Alex headed for the door.

"Sir?"

"If anything happens… anything at all… that suggests you're at risk, I'll have you locked away under police guard so fast it'll make your head spin. Do you understand me? I didn't work this hard to get you on my team just for some nutcase to take you out."

Bobby grimaced a little, but nodded in acquiescence.

"Yes, sir, I understand."

Deakins nodded, satisfied that his point had been made.

"Good. Now get going."

* * *

"I'm waiting," Alex said ruefully as they headed back down to their SUV. Bobby looked at her, puzzled.

"Waiting for what?"

"C'mon, Goren," Alex grumbled, wishing he'd get it over with and put her out of her misery. "Just say 'I told you so', and be done with it."

He looked at her, genuinely surprised.

"Why would I say that?"

She paused in getting into the SUV, looking at him wonderingly. Any of the other detectives would have wasted no time rubbing her face in the fact that she'd been wrong about Jason, and yet Bobby apparently had no such desire.

"Forget I said anything," she told him finally, and he nodded in wordless acquiescence, turning his attention to the passenger window. Alex bore the silence for nearly five minutes before speaking again.

"Are you okay?"

Bobby nodded, though she noticed he didn't look at her as he spoke.

"Yeah. Sure."

"Don't worry, Goren," she said flippantly after observing him for a long moment while they sat at traffic lights. "He won't get near you."

Bobby glanced at her quizzically. She grinned at him in response to the look her gave her.

"Hey, I'm just getting to like you. I can't let anything happen to you now. It'd mean having to break in a whole new partner, and I doubt I'd be lucky enough to find another one quite like you."

Once more, she was treated to that small, shy smile that lit his face up so beautifully. Satisfied, Alex turned her attention to the road and focused on getting them back to the hotel as quickly as possible.

* * *

Not knowing what else to do, or where else to go, Jason soon found himself back in the hotel lobby, and back with his friends.

"Thought you would've been arrested by now," Zack said coldly. Jason froze, staring at Zack in disbelief.

"You don't honestly think I killed him?"

"We don't know what to think, Jason," Trini said tearfully. "You were the last of us to see Tommy alive… Or are you going to deny seeing him last night after you left the restaurant?"

Jason walked around and sat down in an empty chair with a heavy thud.

"No, I'm not denying that I saw him. He followed me out of the restaurant, and he bailed me up near the lifts. We argued, and then I went up to my room and went to bed."

"And what about this morning?" Kim demanded. "Where were you this morning?"

At that, Jason fell silent, staring anywhere but at his four friends.

"How are we supposed to trust you when you won't be honest with us?" Billy demanded. "Why can't you just tell us where you were, and what you were doing? Don't you see how suspicious it looks to us that you won't tell us?"

"I know how it looks to you," Jason admitted. "And I'm sorry, but it's my business, and it's personal. If you can't trust me, then I'm sorry, but I'm not going to tell you what I was doing."

"Son of a bitch," Zack snarled, and he possibly would have launched himself at Jason, but for Trini and Billy grabbing him and holding him back. Jason, for his part, never made an effort to move away.

"Knock it off, guys," Kim said in a strained voice. "Those detectives are coming."

Jason looked around, and felt his stomach drop at the sight of Bobby Goren and his partner coming towards them. Had they come to arrest him? he wondered dismally. He braced himself, getting slowly to his feet as they approached.

"Detective Goren," he said flatly. "Detective Eames. Long time no see."

Alex glanced at Bobby, rolling her eyes in mock exasperation.

"Relax, Jason," Bobby told him wryly. "We aren't here to arrest you, but we do need to talk to you, and your friends."

"What about?" Kim asked tersely. "We've already told you everything we know. Although, we can't speak for Jason."

"Knock of the attitude, Miss Hart," Alex said crisply. "We know none of you are responsible for Mr Oliver's death."

Jason blinked, startled.

"You know who killed him?"

"We have a pretty good idea," Bobby replied. "Jason… We think your father did it."

Jason stood frozen, his face literally draining of colour as he stared at Bobby. A moment later, his legs buckled beneath him, and it was only a swift response from Bobby that saved him from a potentially nasty fall.

"Sit," Bobby murmured, guiding the young man to the nearest chair and sitting him down in it.

"What do you mean, his father?" Zack growled. "Dr Scott wouldn't hurt anyone. That's fucking crazy!"

Bobby and Alex looked at each other, and then at Jason.

"They don't know, do they?" Alex asked.

"Don't know what?" Trini asked, turning an intense frown on Jason.

Jason shook his head slowly, pushing his face into the palms of his hands.

"No. I never told them."

"Told us what?" Kim demanded to know, her voice rising with mounting anger. "Jason, what have you been hiding from us?"

"I told you," Alex snapped, "can the attitude. Now, I suggest we go somewhere that we can talk privately. I'll speak to the concierge."

"What the fuck is going on here?" Zack asked softly, staring hard at Jason. Slowly, Jason lifted his head to look at each of his friends. His eyes were rimmed with tears, and his face was the colour of ash.

"I killed Tommy. I mean… I didn't kill him myself… but I might as well have."

"Don't say that," Bobby murmured. Jason looked up at him, growing more distressed with every second that passed.

"Why not? It's true!"

"No, it isn't," Bobby growled. "Because if you're responsible, then so am I."

Jason jerked a little.

"That's insane."

"No more than you saying you're responsible."

Jason stared up at him for several long, painful seconds, then moaned softly and dropped his head back into his hands. Moments later, Alex returned.

"The concierge is opening up an office for us. This way…"

* * *

"Okay," Kim said tensely once they were seated in the office. "What is this all about?"

"Hang on a second," Jason growled. He looked at Bobby and Alex, confused and increasingly angry. "He's supposed to be locked up. Are you telling me he's been released?"

"Released on parole two weeks ago," Alex confirmed, and Jason groaned.

"Can someone please tell us what the hell is going on?" Zack burst out.

"Do you want to tell them?" Bobby asked quietly. "Or do you want me to?"

Jason hesitated, considering the offer. He knew that Bobby had as much right to tell the story as he did, but he had a responsibility to come clean with his friends – especially in light of what had happened to Tommy.

"No. No… I'll tell them." He looked up at Zack, Billy, Trini and Kim, ashen-faced and sick. "My father… my real father's name… is Alan Scott. He was sent to prison when I was eight, for murdering my mother, and for trying to murder me and Detective Goren, and one other detective. He should have still been in prison… He was never supposed to be let out." He looked up at Bobby. "How did he get out?"

"He still has friends in high places," Alex said quietly. "They pulled strings… got his case before an appellate court, and that got him before a parole board. No one who would have protested it knew about it until it was all done with. We never found out until this morning ourselves."

"Jesus…" Jason whispered, distraught.

"So if your real dad is in prison for killing your Mum," Trini said in confusion, "then who is it that you've been calling Mum and Dad all these years?"

"Mum and Dad are really my Aunt Sarah and my Uncle Donavon," Jason explained hoarsely. "They adopted me after my father was found guilty and sent to prison. I never thought of them as my aunt and uncle. They were… They _are_ my Mum and dad."

"So let us get this straight," Zack said quietly. "Your real father is a lunatic who killed your Mum, and tried to kill you. And now he's out of prison and… what, just decided to start picking us off, just for the hell of it?"

"Not just for the hell of it," Bobby corrected grimly. "And you aren't his only target, Jason."

Jason stared at Bobby in dismay.

"You too?"

"Yes," Bobby confirmed. He looked to the others. "Alan Scott made some very specific threats in a couple of scrapbooks that were found by his parole officer. It indicates that he would try to hurt Jason by killing anyone he cares about… is close to."

Zack grunted.

"Then he fucked up royally. Jase and Tommy hated each other."

"But it wasn't always like that, was it?" Alex asked, and Jason shook his head.

"No. There was a time when we were close… like brothers. Damn, how could this happen?"

"We'd like to know the answer to that question, too, but what's important right now is how we deal with this," Alex said. "Now, this is what's going to happen. We are going to place a watch on this hotel, and none of you are to leave unaccompanied, for any reason. We'll contact any family members that you'd like us to, and we'll organise to get you all on flights home as soon as possible. But until then, consider yourselves under police guard, at least for the time being."

Alex's words were met with a murmur of dismay, but none of them objected. Then, while Alex and Bobby drew away from the group to discuss the finer points of the operation, Jason spoke guiltily to his friends.

"Guys… Look, I'm sorry I never told you the truth."

"You should have trusted us, Jase," Zack said softly. "I mean, we all went through so much crap together in high school… we literally had to trust each other with our lives… but you couldn't trust us with this. Do I need to tell you how much that hurts, man?"

Jason stared down at the floor.

"No. But you have to understand my point of view. It was something that I didn't ever want to relive, and I wanted to just forget it had ever happened. I mean, c'mon! I watched my father murder my mother! And then he tried to kill me as well! If I'd had to tell you guys that, it would have just been rehashing painful memories that I didn't want. And as far as I was concerned, that part of my life was over with. The son of a bitch was supposed to be in prison for the rest of his life. He wasn't ever supposed to get out! I never saw a reason to tell anyone… It just hurt too much to even consider talking about it."

"We understand," Trini said softly, and Jason looked up to find that his friends were no longer looking at him with anger, but with understanding and compassion. Trini smiled reassuringly at him. "We do, Jason. We wish you'd trusted us to begin with, but I think I can safely say we all understand why you never told us. Don't we, guys?"

A murmur of agreement went through the group. Jason sighed softly.

"Thanks."

Kim reached across, and gently grasped his hand.

"We'll support you, Jase, just like always. Just don't hide from us again, okay? We might not be kids in high school anymore, but everything we based our friendship on is still important."

"Yeah," Zack said. He paused, then grinned. "And if that creep tries to get near you, we'll cheerfully kick his ass. Right, guys?"

There was a collective and resounding reply to Zack's affirmation. Jason smiled tiredly, warmed by the whole-hearted support of his friends.

* * *

"I guess old friendships die hard," Alex mused with a smile as she and Bobby watched the reconciliation between the group of friends. Bobby looked on for a long moment before turning away.

"I guess so."

Alex regarded him thoughtfully, wondering whether he had ever experienced a friendship like that which Jason seemed to have with his friends. Perhaps not, she mused, and felt a touch of sadness at the thought. She'd had plenty of good friends herself over the years, but she suspected that Bobby, with all his quirks and oddities, had never had the good fortune to experience that level of support.

She hesitated in speaking, considering whether she was ready to take their partnership to a new level, then decided it was time to take a chance. The worst he could do, she thought ruefully, was throw it back in her face.

"Goren… It's going to be okay."

He looked back at her, puzzled, and she mentally kicked herself for the lame way that had come out.

"What I mean," she went on, fumbling for the right words, "is that you've got my support. If that son of a bitch wants to get at you, he'll have to go through me first." She paused, then smiled. "After all, you are my partner, and I figured that since we seem to be getting along, I might as well do what I can to keep you. Right?"

There it was again, that endearing, lopsided grin, and Alex felt a rush of warmth through her. She _loved_ that he got her attitude.

"Thanks, Eames. I… I appreciate it."

She clapped him gently on the back.

"Anytime. Now, I think we'd better get back before Deakins has a fit." She turned her attention back to the group of friends, reluctantly interrupting them.

"All of you, listen up," she told them sternly. "Don't leave the hotel unless you absolutely have to, and don't go without an officer to accompany you. Stay here, and stay together, and you should all be okay. Understand?" A murmur of agreement went through the group. Alex nodded, satisfied. "Good. We have to go now, but we'll check back in with you this evening. And if you need to get in contact with us, Jason has our number."

They left the group, heading back out to the SUV.

"They should be fine," Alex said quietly, "as long as they do the right thing."

Bobby nodded in agreement, though Alex quietly suspected that he wasn't anywhere near as certain about it as she was.

* * *

_tbc..._


	6. Interlude I: A Second Death

Trini Kwan had never been one to be defiant, particularly where her parents were concerned. When they'd learned she was coming to New York to take up a position at the United Nations offices there, they had asked her to pay a visit to an elderly uncle, and she had readily agreed. By doing so, she would be honouring her parents' wishes, something that was very important to her.

She'd been less than impressed to be told by those two detectives that she was not to leave the hotel under any circumstances. She had already made arrangements to meet her uncle that very same afternoon, and because he stubbornly refused to communicate by any means other than letters, she had no way of contacting him to let him know she wasn't going to be coming after all.

In the end, it was her loyalty to her parents, and her desire not to see them dishonoured by her apparent breaking of her promise, that saw her slip out of the hotel that afternoon after lunch.

She was certain she could get to her uncle's home, and then back again before anyone was aware she was missing. And she certainly didn't fear anyone attacking her. She was trained in martial arts, after all, and surely she could defend herself if anything happened.

Trini tugged her coat tightly around her body as she hurried into Central Park. A quick shortcut through the park, and then she would be at her uncle's apartment block. As much as she appreciated the concern of the two detectives, really there was nothing at all to worry about.

She hurried along the winding path, and as she walked, she gradually became conscious of someone walking along behind her.

Trini quickened her pace, hating herself for giving in to nervousness but not caring to be caught unawares, either. The footsteps behind her quickened to match the pace set by her.

Her heart-rate began to soar as her mind raced at high speed through a dozen different scenarios, each one more terrifying than the last. Finally, frightened and angry, Trini halted and spun to face her pursuer.

The last thing she saw was the glint of metal as the blade of a knife slashed across her throat, and her blood as it spattered out across the black-clad chest of the man who took her life.

* * *

"Trini's gone."

Jason looked up from his book in surprise and concern at Kim's revelation.

"Gone where?"

"I don't know," Kim burst out, her voice high with fear. "She's just gone! I tried her cell, but it just rang out."

Jason looked around at Zack and Billy. Each of them stared back with similar fear in their eyes.

"Okay," he said softly, grimly. "I'll call Bobby."

* * *

"What is it?" Alex asked as Bobby hung up, looking intensely worried.

"That was Jason. Trini Kwan is missing from the hotel."

Anger flashed across Alex's face.

"Damn it, we told them to stay put!"

"What's wrong?" Deakins asked, pausing as he passed their desks. The two detectives exchanged grim looks before Bobby finally answered.

"Trini Kwan is missing."

"Kwan… She's part of that group, isn't she? One of Jason Scott's friends?"

"That's right," Alex confirmed, keeping one eye on Bobby as she answered.

"Hell… Okay, get a description out to the black and whites. Do her friends have any idea where she might have gone? Family, or other friends?"

"Well, apparently she has an uncle living on the east side of Central Park, so it's possible she's gone to see him."

"Get a patrol to Central Park, straight away," Deakins ordered them as he started back towards his office. "We need to find her before Scott does."

Alex and Bobby rose up from their seats, and were just shrugging on their coats when the phone on Bobby's desk rang shrilly. Sparing his partner a grim look, Bobby answered the phone.

"Goren. …When? …Okay, thanks. We'll be right there."

"What is it?" Alex asked as he hung up. Bobby stared at her, ashen-faced.

"The body of a young Asian woman was found in Central Park about twenty minutes. Her throat was slashed. CSU are already out there, processing. They found ID in her wallet identifying her as a United Nations employee, so they called us."

"It's her?"

Bobby nodded grimly.

"Yes. It's her."

Alex let her breath out in a rush.

"Damn. Okay, let's go see to it."

* * *

_tbc_...


	7. Disagreements and Near Disasters

Deakins stood in the doorway of his office, waiting impatiently for Bobby and Alex to return from examining the latest crime scene left by Alan Scott. They knew now without a doubt that it was Scott – the psychopath had left a dirty big fingerprint on Tommy Oliver's watch, which had just been matched by CSU to Scott's fingerprints that were in the system. He had no doubt a matching print would be found somewhere on Trini Kwan's body, as well.

Scott didn't seem to care whether he was caught, as long as he avoided capture long enough to do what he wanted to do.

Deakins grimaced. Specifically, that meant killing both Jason Scott and Bobby Goren.

The two detectives rounded the corner, deep in discussion. Deakins waited until they'd gotten their coats off, then called them over.

"I don't suppose there's any chance it was a totally random, unrelated attack?" he asked. Alex shook her head.

"No. The MO's the same, and CSU found fingerprints that they just finished analysing. It was Alan Scott."

Deakins sighed heavily.

"Okay. We have a lunatic on the rampage here, and no starting point for where to find him." He looked across at Bobby with a mixture of sympathy and apology on his face. Bobby caught the look, and quickly interpreted its meaning.

"No! I'm not going into protective custody! Captain, I'm not going into hiding!"

"I warned you already, Goren," Deakins argued. "We've had two deaths too many, and I'm not placing you at risk when I don't have to."

"I don't need to be in protection," Bobby protested. "Look, so far, Scott has only targeted Jason's friends. He hasn't come anywhere near me…"

"That you know of," Deakins cut in sharply. "Don't fight me on this, Goren. I promise you that I will win."

"I won't go into hiding," Bobby persisted stubbornly, sounding remarkably like a schoolboy who'd just been asked to do something that he didn't want to do. Deakins half-expected to hear him mutter 'You can't make me', but it didn't come.

"Bobby," Deakins pleaded, resorting to using the detective's first name, "don't make me do something that I really don't want to do! This is for your own protection, after all."

"What would you do, suspend me?" Bobby demanded defiantly. Deakins stared right back at him grimly, and Bobby almost literally deflated right in front of both him and Alex.

"You're… You're not serious?" he stammered. It was all Deakins could do not to fold under the intensity of the stares from both Bobby and Alex.

"I will if you leave me no other choice, Goren."

"You can't do that, Captain!" Alex burst out, jumping to her partner's defence. "You know that goes on his record!"

"I don't want to do it," Deakins growled. "If you'll just swallow your damn pride, Goren, and do what I'm asking, then I won't have to!"

Bobby sat frozen to his seat, barely able to comprehend the threat that had just been levelled against him by a man that he was just coming to respect and admire.

"I'm sorry to have to do this to you," Deakins apologised in a calmer tone, "but I just don't want anything to happen to you. Can't you understand that?"

Bobby continued to sit stiffly, neither speaking or moving. Deakins watched him with more than a touch of fear. He'd hated having to threaten the suspension, and in truth he would never actually go through with it officially, but the effect the mere threat had had on Bobby was profound.

Suddenly, without warning, Bobby launched himself to his feet and stormed out of Deakins' office.

"Goren…" Alex called after him, but he gave no indication of stopping, or even slowing down. She looked back at Deakins, openly angry.

"Why did you do that? Why did you have to threaten to suspend him? After all the crap the brass put him through over the Scott case to begin with, that was just plain stupid!"

Deakins sighed.

"I know, I should never have suggested it. I just don't want to see him get hurt, Alex."

"Neither do I," she growled, "but wrapping him in cotton wool isn't going to help anyone."

"Would you go after him, Alex?" Deakins pleaded with her. "Look, I'm not going to put him on suspension, but could you please try and talk some sense into him?"

Alex grimaced, but conceded and hurried after her wayward partner.

* * *

"Goren! Damn it, will you wait for me?"

He heard her calling after him, but kept walking and didn't so much as glance back. His long legs allowed him to keep ahead of her, despite the fact that she was running.

It wasn't that he didn't want to talk to her, but he was angry. He was damned angry, and the last thing he wanted was to take it out on his feisty partner. A small, dark part of him was terrified that if he let her see the full force of his anger, then she would turn tail and run away from him as fast as she could. The logical side of his brain laughed such a notion off, but he still couldn't rid himself of that deep, dark fear.

And so he kept walking, pretending to be oblivious to her shouts. He'd passed through the outer doors of One Police Plaza and had made it almost all the way to the street when Alex bellowed after him once more.

"Goddamn it, Goren, stop walking or I swear to God I will shoot you!"

He stopped, brought to a halt more by the vehemence in her voice than the actual words.

"Now turn around and look at me!"

Again, he was compelled to move more by her tone of voice than the actual verbal demand. As their eyes met, he thought he saw her flinch a little, but she recovered herself quickly enough that he just couldn't be certain. She stood several metres away from him, making no effort to move closer, but the look in her eyes demanded he stop running from her. He found himself obeying that demand, unable to deny her.

"That's better," Alex growled. "Now, will you please talk to me?"

"What's to talk about?" Bobby said bitterly. "He said he'll suspend me. If he does that, I'm finished. I won't get another chance."

"He's not going to suspend you," Alex told him, walking closer slowly, as if any sudden movement on her part would cause him to bolt like a frightened rabbit. "He's just worried and, frankly, so am I. We don't doubt you can take care of yourself, but you can't be blind to the danger, either!"

Bobby stood silently, staring at Alex with an inscrutable expression. He was just on the verge of conceding when someone shouted a panicked warning to him to watch out. Even before he had a chance to react to the shout, he saw Alex's eyes widen in shock, and her mouth open as though to shout a warning of her own, but no sound emerged from her lips.

He turned fully towards the sound of the first voice, just in time to see the mini-van coming straight at him.

Bobby's reflexes were good, but not that good. Later on, he would testify that he remembered very little of the incident itself – just that instant of panic at seeing the vehicle bearing down on him, followed by a blinding pain through his entire body at the actual Moment of impact. Then, he was lifted into the air, only to land with an excruciating thud back on the concrete pavement. His head struck the hard surface, and his world faded to black.

* * *

Alex heard the shout, and looked around just as a van mounted the pavement, heading straight for her partner. She opened her mouth to yell, for whatever good it would have done, but no sound came out.

She stood, paralysed, as the van hit Bobby head on, the impact sending him flying several metres through the air. She could only watch in numb horror as her partner's body hit the pavement with a truly sickening thud, his head bouncing off the concrete like a semi-deflated basketball.

The van sped off without so much as slowing down, but Alex had no eyes for the vehicle, or its number plates. Breaking her paralysis, she flew across the pavement to where Bobby lay, his body a broken and twisted mess.

"Bobby? Can you hear me? Oh god…"

She reached for him, but a new voice spoke loudly, startling her into pulling her hands back.

"No, don't touch him! Wait for the paramedics to get here. If there's an injury to his spine, you could just make it worse."

She looked around dazedly to find one of her fellow Major Case detectives, David McCall, was suddenly at her side. He had his radio out, and was calling for help almost before he'd finished speaking to her.

"Dispatch, I need an ambulance sent to One Police Plaza, stat. We have an officer down. He's been hit by a car…"

Alex tuned out McCall's voice, and turned her attention back to her partner.

"Goren, can you hear me?"

She held little hope, but tried anyway. Her heart skipped a beat when a faint moan escaped his lips, and his eyes fluttered open.

"Oh, thank God," she whispered. She reached out to touch him again, but managed to stop herself just short of doing so, remembering McCall's warning.

"Captain Deakins…? Yes, it's McCall. You'd better get out here now. Goren's just been hit by a van. …Yes, he's alive, but it looks like he's pretty badly hurt. …Okay."

McCall slipped his cell phone back into his pocket, then looked at Alex.

"Captain's on his way down. He's gonna be okay, Eames. An ambulance is on its way."

Alex nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Instead, she turned her focus onto Bobby, and away from the gathering crowd of cops who had seen the frightening incident.

His eyes managed to focus on her, but though his lips moved, nothing came out.

"Don't try to talk," she told him softly. "Just save your strength, okay? And hang on, help's coming."

A shudder passed through him, and his eyes flickered shut as he lost consciousness again. Alex looked up, then, at the multitude of cops milling around, watching the scene before them with genuine concern.

"Please," Alex said in a strained voice, "tell me someone got the plate number."

"Plates were painted over," someone said. "The van left tread marks on the concrete, though. CSU might be able to do something with that."

Abruptly, the crowd parted, and a Moment later Deakins literally skidded to his knees beside Alex.

"Christ Almighty… What the hell happened?"

"It was a deliberate hit," McCall told him grimly. "The son of a bitch, whoever he was, mounted the pavement and hit Goren pretty much head on. The guy never had a chance to get out of the way."

Deakins let his breath out in a rush as he looked over the battered form of his detective. At a glance, it appeared he had at least two broken limbs – his left leg and his right arm. He probably had broken ribs… as well as one hell of a shocking concussion. And God only knew what sort internal damage there might be…

"Has anyone called an ambulance?" he demanded to know.

"I did," McCall confirmed. He looked up as the sound of sirens reached their ears. "Here it comes now."

The ambulance pulled up close by, and Alex and Deakins were both forced back while the paramedics saw to the injured detective.

"Alex, go with him in the ambulance," Deakins told her quietly. "Wait there, and let me know as soon as you hear how he is."

She nodded, watching as the paramedics slid a backboard beneath her partner's body, and lifted him carefully onto the gurney.

"What are you going to…?"

"I'm going to organise a guard rotation for Goren. Then I'm going to arrange to put Jason into protective custody, and get the rest of his friends onto planes and send them home," Deakins explained.

"You think it was Scott?" she asked. He nodded.

"I don't doubt it was Scott. This is just too much of a coincidence. McCall…?"

"Yes, sir?"

"You say it wasn't an accident?"

McCall gave a short, barking laugh.

"No way was that an accident, sir. That van mounted the sidewalk and just drove straight at him. It wasn't an accident. I'd say that whoever was driving that van was trying damned hard to kill Goren."

Deakins nodded grimly.

"I'm going to organise a guard rotation to protect Goren. Scott's tried once now, and made a damned good fist of it by all appearances. I'm not taking anymore chances. Goren's going into protective custody, whether he likes it or not."

"He won't like it," Alex muttered.

"I don't care," Deakins growled. "Goren is clearly a viable target for this lunatic. I won't take unnecessary risks. He's going into protective custody, and that's final. Go with the ambulance, Alex, and call me with an update as soon as you can."

Alex nodded wearily and followed her partner to the ambulance.

"Sir…?"

Deakins looked around as McCall joined him, and the two men began to walk back to One Police Plaza.

"What is it?"

"This attack on Goren… You don't seem surprised by it."

"Honestly, McCall? I'm not. Do you remember the Scott case thirteen years back?"

McCall raised an eyebrow slightly.

"You mean the one Goren was involved in? That detective from Homicide who was killing those women?"

"That's the one. He's out of prison."

"I thought he was supposed to be in for life?"

"He was," Deakins answered. "Friends in high places. _Very_ high places."

"Son of a bitch… Let me guess. Now he's out, and he's after Goren for a bit of old fashioned revenge."

"Not only Goren. He's after his son, too. We need to find this bastard, McCall. There are two young people dead, and he just took a damned good shot at Goren. I don't want anymore casualties, or anymore deaths."

"Do you want me to organise the guard rotation for at the hospital, sir?"

"No, I'll take care of that. I want you to work with CSU, and see what they come up with. Can you do that, McCall? I know you have a pretty heavy caseload…"

"No, it's okay," McCall murmured. "I can do that. If you need me to do anything else, sir, just let me know."

* * *

"I can't believe Trini's gone," Kim whispered, her voice muffled by Zack's shoulder.

"I know," Zack murmured. "It's just totally unbelievable."

Jason glanced back at his two friends, then looked away again, out the window. When Bobby and his partner, Detective Eames, had arrived earlier to break the news, they had all been devastated, but Jason had suffered the added burden of guilt on top of his grief. Bobby had told him quietly that it wasn't his fault, and that he wasn't to blame himself, but Jason was having none of it.

It was _his_ father, and _his_ father was killing _his_ friends, with the specific intention of hurting _him_. How did Bobby possibly think that he wasn't supposed to feel guilty?

"It's not your fault, Jason."

Jason stiffened a little at Billy's gentle admonishment.

"Then whose fault is it, Billy?"

"Trini should never have snuck out the way she did," Billy said quietly. Kim looked up, anger flashing across her face.

"Don't you blame Trini," Kim said vehemently. "That's just cruel, Billy."

"It's the truth," Billy snapped. "She did the wrong thing, and she paid for it with her life. We were all told to stay in the hotel, but Trini decided that rule didn't apply to her. She took a stupid chance, and it cost her. If you want to blame anyone else, you blame Jason's biological father, and not Jason. He's not responsible for what his father does, anymore than we're responsible for _our_ parents' actions."

"He's right," Zack murmured softly. "We don't have to like it, but Billy's right. Trini made the wrong decision. Jase…?"

Jason turned away from the window, and dropped heavily into the nearest chair.

"I keep waiting for the next bit of bad news. Who's he going to hit out at next?"

"They'll catch him," Billy said firmly. "He won't get the chance to hurt anyone else, Jason. They're going to catch him, and this time he really will go away for life."

"I want to believe that," Jason said miserably. "I really do."

"But you can't," Zack said softly.

"Two people are dead because of me," Jason insisted. "No matter how you look at it, that's still the bottom line. I'm responsible for Tommy and Trini's deaths. No matter how you look at it…"

The door to their suite opened suddenly, and all four looked around just as a tall, silver-haired man walked in.

"You a cop?" Zack asked dully. Deakins nodded.

"I'm James Deakins. I'm captain of the Major Case Squad." His gaze flickered over the four, and finally came to rest on Jason. "Mr Scott, I'm here to place you officially in protective custody. The rest of you will be escorted to La Guardia, and placed on flights home."

Jason stood up slowly, his already pale face turning the colour of ash.

"He's killed someone else, hasn't he?"

"No, not killed," Deakins said grimly. "Detective Goren was run down by a vana couple of hours ago when he left One Police Plaza."

"Oh no," Jason moaned.

"Please," Deakins said, "get your things together."

"We're going _now_?" Zack asked incredulously. Deakins focused a hard look on him.

"Yes, Mr Taylor, _now_. The sooner the three of you are out of New York, the happier I'll be."

"And what about me?" Jason asked hoarsely.

"Arrangements are being made as we speak," Deakins told him. "You'll have around the clock police protection until your father is apprehended."

"He's not my father," Jason said bitterly as he headed to his room to pack his bags.

* * *

"Is he badly hurt?" Jason asked softly once he and his friends had been ushered into individual police SUVs and were headed away from the hotel, to their various destinations. "Bobby, I mean…"

"He was fairly badly hurt," Deakins confirmed. "I heard from Detective Eames at the hospital just before I got to the hotel. His left leg was broken… and so was his right arm, and he has several cracked ribs… and one hell of a vicious concussion. He banged his head pretty damn hard on the pavement, apparently."

"Captain Deakins," Jason asked, "I'd like to see him, if I could."

Deakins looked across at him thoughtfully.

"I think we can manage that. Mackenzie, head for St Clare's."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

Alex was sitting in Bobby's hospital room when Deakins arrived with Jason. She'd pulled a chair over close to the bed, and was watching her partner worriedly. Bobby was awake, though clearly none-too-receptive. In addition to the broken limbs he'd suffered, his face was covered in small cuts and bruises, but beneath the discolouration of those marks, his face was almost ivory white from shock and loss of blood.

"How are you feeling, Goren?" Deakins asked as he and Jason came into the room, past the cops standing guard at the door. Goren looked over at them wearily, and the pain he was suffering was reflected all too clearly in his face.

"Do I have to answer that?" he asked, his voice barely more than a mumble. "And don't say 'I told you so', please…"

"I won't say it," Deakins answered, "but you can be damned sure that I'm thinking it. Damn it, Goren, why did you have be so pig-headed? You could have been killed!"

Bobby sighed faintly.

"Well, don't worry. Consider me cured."

"I should hope so," Deakins growled, and then looked across at Alex.

"Have you spoken to the doctor?"

She nodded.

"Yes, just a little while ago, actually. He said it's not as bad as it looks, and the doctor said he can probably go home tomorrow. He didn't need surgery, luckily. No internal injuries. He won't be moving anywhere very quickly for a while, though."

Deakins' gaze went to Bobby's plastered left leg, and his plastered right arm, and it was all he could to not to cringe. Alex wasn't wrong – Bobby wouldn't be going anywhere fast for quite some time. Jason came forward, then, his expression filled with guilt.

"I'm sorry, Bobby…"

Bobby looked over at him, frowning a little.

"For what?"

"Well… for this," Jason stammered, indicating Bobby's injuries with a general sweep of his hand. "You… You could have been killed!"

Bobby dismissed Jason's worries with a disinterested grunt.

"Wasn't your fault."

"But…"

"I said, it wasn't your fault."

"No," Deakins retorted. "It was _his_ fault for being a stubborn ass."

Bobby shot the captain a death glare, then sighed in resignation and shut his eyes tiredly.

"So what happens now?" Jason asked nervously.

"As soon as Goren is discharged, he'll go into protective custody, the same as you," Deakins explained.

"In other words," Bobby said without opening his eyes, "we get put under lock and key while the rank and file brigade searches for Alan."

"Thin ice, Goren," Deakins growled warningly. Then, to Jason, "I expect you'll both be put up in a hotel somewhere out of the way."

"Out of the way," Bobby grumbled. "That's sounds just great."

"Goren, don't start," Deakins snapped. "You're in no position to argue with me."

Bobby looked across at the captain in increasing aggravation.

"I don't care to be cooped up in a dingy little hotel room, Captain."

"Bobby, listen to me," Deakins said in a forcibly calm tone. "This is no minor issue. This is a serious threat to both you and Jason. You can't deny that."

"I'm not denying anything," Bobby argued, but Deakins silenced him with a stern look.

"Let me finish, Detective. This is a serious, credible threat, and I am not going to risk you being injured again… or killed, for that matter. And if that means locking you up in – as you put it – a dingy little hotel room, then so be it. Do you understand me?"

Bobby looked away sulkily, still in too much pain and shock to be able to argue any further. Alex was watching her partner thoughtfully through the whole exchange. Her gaze flickered briefly to Jason, and she realised he was no more happy with the situation than Bobby was.

"Can I suggest something?" she asked quietly. All three men looked at her expectantly, and it was with considerable effort that she swallowed an urge to respond to their apparent expectations with sarcasm.

"Anything to stop World War III," Deakins said dryly, and Alex found herself having to fight back a smirk.

"Instead of a hotel, what about Goren's apartment?"

She could read the incredulity on their faces as clearly as if it were flashing neon on a billboard above their heads. Somehow keeping the urge to laugh under control, Alex elaborated.

"Goren has a big enough apartment to cater for Jason as well, and I'm sure he wouldn't mind. We can keep the building under surveillance, have a couple of cops posted at his front door round the clock, and I can stay with them in the apartment to keep and eye on things and be close at hand if there is any trouble."

Deakins frowned a little.

"I suppose that could work," he conceded with reluctance.

"So instead of being locked up in a hotel room, I get to be locked up in my own apartment," Bobby grouched. He yelped a moment later when Alex smacked him on the shoulder. "That hurt, damn it!"

"Good," Alex snapped back. "I'm trying to help your sorry ass out here. You could try being a little more appreciative."

Bobby scowled.

"I have an excuse," he said, sounding for all the world like a petulant child. "I'm in pain."

"Bullshit," she retorted. "You're a stubborn ass, just like the captain said. Now shut up, and let me handle this."

"Great," Bobby muttered, though by that time he was having a hard time hiding the grin that wanted to fight its way onto his face. "Henpecked, and I'm not even married."

"Don't make me hit you again, Goren," Alex warned him, and he promptly shut his mouth.

"All right," Deakins agreed suddenly, quietly impressed with the way Alex brought the stubborn detective back into line with a few sharp, well-aimed words. "Okay, I'll go along with it. We'll put Jason up in a hotel for tonight, and tomorrow we'll move the two of you into your apartment, Goren. That will give me time to organise full surveillance. Eames will stay inside the apartment to…"

"Chaperone?" Bobby suggested, only to yelp again as he won himself yet another smack across the shoulder. He shut his mouth again meekly, effectively silenced without Alex having to speak a single word. Deakins threw her a look of admiration before continuing on.

"Eames will stay in the apartment as well to monitor everything at close quarters. Bottom line is, I don't want Alan Scott getting anywhere near either of you. Once you're in that apartment, you're both to stay put. No exceptions, not for any reason. Now, we will catch Alan, but I need your cooperation, and that is going to come in the form of _not_ putting yourselves in harm's way. Am I making myself clear?"

Jason nodded quickly, quietly relieved not only to have avoided being sequestered in some dingy little hotel room, as Bobby had so eloquently put it, but also to have company.

"Crystal," Bobby mumbled wearily, exhaustion finally starting to overtake him. Deakins watched as the younger man slipped into a light sleep, his hard expression softening noticeably. Alex watched him with just a hint of a smile before speaking quietly.

"Don't worry, Captain. I'll look after him, I promise." Her gaze went to Jason. "That goes for both of you."

Jason grimaced. "Haven't been told that since I was in Junior High, and my parents still thought I needed a babysitter."

"I'm no babysitter," Alex warned him lightly. "And I'll cheerfully give you a swift kick up the ass if you give me any trouble. Got it, kid?"

"Loud and clear," Jason said with a chuckle.

"All right," Deakins murmured, a wry smile tugging at his lips as he ushered Jason back out into the hospital corridor. "Let's get moving. We have to get you safely to your temporary accommodation for tonight, Jason. And you'd better enjoy the peace while it lasts, because you won't get much of it once you're holed up with those two."

"I heard that," Alex's voice floated out to them. Deakins grinned, and guided Jason back along the corridor, graciously deciding to let the feisty detective have the last word.

* * *

_tbc..._


	8. Sequestered

So this was what men were like when they were dropped into a fairly angsty situation, and had to spend a lot of time together in fairly close quarters, Alex thought with ill-hidden amusement. They effectively turned into complete bozos.

From the Moment they'd arrived at and settled into Bobby's apartment, the pair had acted much like brothers who had been separated at birth and finally had the chance to catch up with each other's lives. The topics of conversation so far – and it had only been a few hours – had ranged from all manner of sports, to cars, to women, and various other testosterone-centred discussions.

Not that it bothered her, of course. She had grown up with an older sister and a younger brother, and had been closer to her brother than her sister, so she wasn't unfamiliar with male bonding rituals. It was amusing to her, nonetheless, to watch the two of them together.

It was also an interesting opportunity to her to have a good look around her partner's apartment, under the guise of checking it out from a surveillance perspective. She had been inside Bobby's apartment once before, but only briefly. They had stopped off on their way to a stakeout so he could grab a couple of things, and then she had just gotten a quick look at the inner sanctum of her partner's life. Not surprisingly, the place had been jammed with books.

Books lined shelves on every wall, and where there was no shelf space, they occupied corners of the room in semi-neat piles. The subjects were as varied as books in a library. It seemed her partner was willing to devour just about anything he could in the way of literary fodder.

"How hard is it to get through the police academy?"

Alex looked around, her interest piqued by the question from the younger man in her protection.

"It's hard work, but it's worth it," she answered. "Why? Thinking of joining?"

Jason smiled sadly.

"I already had. I was supposed to be going in to the academy in San Diego after I got home from this trip. I guess I'll be putting that on hold, now."

Alex looked over at Bobby, who wore a similarly sympathetic look on his bruised face. A fine trio they made, each one with specific dreams and goals, and each one with specific hurdles to climb over to reach those goals. She walked over and sat down on the sofa, next to Jason.

Bobby occupied his armchair, having refused to go and lie down on his bed, as per his doctor's orders. Alex, for her part, had no desire to enforce that rule. Instinct told her that even workaholic Bobby Goren wouldn't push himself beyond what he was capable of. He would go and lie down and rest when he really did need to. Surprised as she was by the realisation, it occurred to her that she did indeed trust him to regulate his own behaviour with appropriate restraint.

"Don't give up on it, Jason," she told him with quiet sincerity. "If it's what you really want to do, it's worth fighting for."

Jason looked across at Bobby, and a small, knowing smile touched his lips.

"I know. Believe me, I do know."

A bemused smile quirked Bobby's lips.

"Don't tell me _you've_ been following my career as well?"

"Not so much me," Jason admitted. "Dad… My Uncle Donavon, that is. He was a police psychiatrist when he and Mum lived in New York. He managed to get a few things out of my mother… my biological mother… and he knew you'd tried to help us. When we moved to California, Dad kept in touch with a couple of his friends, and they kept him up to date on what was happening with you." Jason shook his head. "He gets angry even now when he thinks about how you were suspended after you were nearly killed saving my life."

"Nearly killed?" Alex echoed, and Jason nodded.

"Yeah. He went into cardiac arrest in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. And then he was in Critical Care on life support for nearly a week before they dared turn it off."

Alex looked at Bobby, truly stunned. She'd known he'd been stabbed, but somehow she'd convinced herself his wounds had only been flesh wounds, and not especially serious. This was news to her.

"You can't tell me you remember that," Bobby growled, and Jason smiled.

"You'd be surprised what I can remember. I was eight, and it's not all that long ago for me."

By that time, Bobby was looking more and more embarrassed as the minutes passed.

"Well, you were hurt too," he argued. Jason nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, but nothing like you. What I had were only surface wounds. Alan tried really hard to kill you, and he nearly succeeded."

"Twice, now," Alex interjected, eyeing his plastered limbs and his battered features grimly. Bobby shook his head.

"This is nothing. This… It isn't important."

"Like hell it's not," Alex snapped. "Damn it, Goren, you could've been killed! And do you have any idea how much trouble I went to convincing Deakins it wasn't as insane as it sounded to partner you with me?"

Bobby blushed red, but he continued to shake his head, dismissing his partner's concerns.

"I'll be fine. It could have been a lot worse. I could have been killed."

"That's the point exactly," Alex reminded him.

"Can we change the subject?" Bobby pleaded. "Please…"

Alex barely hid a smirk.

"Fine. We'll change the subject. Jason?"

Jason raised an eyebrow slightly.

"Yes?"

"Tell us about yourself."

"Well… what do you want to know?"

"Anything," Alex said with a shrug. "School… Hobbies… Anything."

A grin flickered across Jason's face.

"Well, I finished school about five years ago… I'm twenty-three now."

"Didn't go to college?" Bobby wondered, and Jason shook his head.

"No, not exactly. I did do a business course that went for one year, but that was because at that point I was still planning on trying to open up my own karate school."

"You learned martial arts?" Alex asked, and Jason nodded, his face lighting up with enthusiasm at getting the chance to talk about one of his favourite topics.

"Yeah. Mum and Dad enrolled me in a school in the town we moved to after leaving New York. I had my black belt by the time I turned twelve, and I was a fifth dan black belt by the time I was nineteen."

Alex whistled softly.

"Impressive. You wouldn't have to worry about the physical side of police training."

Jason shrugged.

"I don't know about that. It'll be a help, though."

"So why not stick with the idea of opening a school of your own?" Alex wondered. Jason's smile faded at that.

"Well… The idea was that I was going to open the school with Tommy…"

"Tommy Oliver?" Bobby asked, and Jason nodded in confirmation.

"Yeah. We'd planned it for a few years. We knew it'd be hard work, but it seemed like it would be worth it."

"What happened to change your mind?" Bobby asked. Jason stared at the coffee table, suddenly unable to look either detective in the eye.

"I went to Switzerland for a year when I was seventeen. It was part of a special program run by the United Nations. I was selected along with two of my friends to go."

"I remember reading about that," Bobby mused. Alex rolled her eyes in mock exasperation. Jason noticed, and had to fight back a smirk. Bobby went on, oblivious to their exchanged amusement.

"Students from all over the world were selected for that conference. It was run like a junior United Nations, wasn't it?"

Jason nodded in confirmation.

"Yes, that's right. There were students selected from every nation that belongs to the United Nations. Our school was asked to select the students for the US contingent, because our town hosted a peace conference a few months prior to the Youth Conference starting in Switzerland.

"When I came back, I expected everything to be the same as when I left, but it wasn't. I mean, it seemed okay to start with… Some things had changed… A couple of my friends had moved on, and there were some new people… But it seemed all right for the moment. But then… I don't know. Tommy just seemed to go cold on me. It was like he thought I was trying to take over, even though I wasn't."

Alex sighed.

"The one constant. Nothing ever stays the same. He was pretty hostile to you, huh?"

A bitter smile crossed Jason's face.

"That's an understatement. The last time I saw Tommy… before the reunion, I mean… we had a huge fight. The dumb thing is, I don't even remember now what it was about. I just remember us both being so damned angry at each other. We just about ended up trying to kill each other."

"And that's what happened the night he was killed?" Alex queried. Jason nodded.

"Sort of. Except, I walked away before it got physical. Tommy accused me of being jealous of him, and I told him was full of crap. It was all stupid."

He shook his head, looking from Alex to Bobby.

"Enough about me. What about you two?"

Bobby and Alex exchanged amused smiles.

"Us two?" Alex echoed. "How do you mean?"

"Well, have you been partners for long? Have you been with Major Case for long?"

Bobby chuckled softly.

"Eames has been with Major Case longer than I have," he answered. "Four years longer, actually. I only joined Major Case a couple of months ago… and that's how long we've been partners for."

Jason hesitated, then asked a question that he was desperately curious to know the answer to.

"How come cops call each other by their last names?"

Neither Bobby nor Alex answered that immediately. The truth was, it wasn't something that either of them had ever consciously thought about.

"You know, I can't answer that," Alex said with a laugh. Bobby, however, had gotten that thoughtful look on his face that Alex was quickly coming to recognise as the precursor to another of his theories.

"I think that it's part professionalism," Bobby said slowly, his gaze fixed on his free hand as he spoke. "But it's also our way of not getting too close to anyone. It… It's a dangerous job, Jason…"

"You don't need to convince me of that," Jason reminded him. "I already know. Remember?"

Bobby smiled, and blushed slightly.

"Sorry. I… I think that maybe it's an ingrained culture… When you have a partner, you need to be close to them… You need to be able to trust them with your life. But… at the same time, you want to… to protect yourself if anything happens."

Alex watched him, fascinated, as he spoke and, gradually, it occurred to her that he was referring primarily to himself, and his own experiences. He wanted to have a partner that he was close to, but he was reluctant to commit himself fully to that partnership… why?

He didn't want to get too close, because he fully expected her to walk away from him… probably like many others before her. She'd heard the rumours, of course, that he'd gone through multiple partners in Narcotics before finally settling in with Fin Tutuola… And he had told her himself that when Fin took up a position with SVU, Bobby had decided to jump before he was pushed, which told her that he honestly expected every other detective in Narcotics to reject him… Just like it would have happened at Major Case, had she not stepped up and offered to partner him, she realised dimly.

She came back to reality to find Jason smiling in mild amusement at Bobby's lengthy cross-examination of his question of why cops called each other by their last names.

"A bit more in-depth than I was expecting," he said with a soft chuckle, "but that's okay."

"It's partly true," Alex conceded, "but I just want to ask you one thing, Goren. What did you call Detective Tutuola?"

"I called him Fin…"

Bobby trailed off, then grinned sheepishly, realising she'd effectively scuttled his entire hypothesis with a single, well-aimed shot. She returned his smile with a 'no hard feelings' grin of her own, to which he nodded amiably.

"You'll find, Jason," she answered, still smiling, "that when you find yourself a partner that you're really in sync with… one that you _trust_, that it's not such a big deal if you do start calling each other by your first names. The reality is, we call each other by our last names, because it's easier. You're less likely to have, say… two cops called Goren working in the same unit, or squad, than two guys called Bobby. It reduces confusion. That's all."

Jason looked at her curiously.

"It couldn't have been easy for you, Detective Eames… getting into a squad like Major Case. You must have worked damned hard to get there."

Alex watched him closely, searching for any hint of mocking, but there was none in the young man's expression. He was entirely serious, and it occurred to her that Jason was not unlike Bobby, in that he seemed to have an utmost respect for women.

"Firstly, call me Alex," she told him firmly, firing a brief grin at her partner. "Secondly, no, it wasn't easy. But it was worth the effort."

"You were in Vice before you came to Major Case, weren't you?" Bobby queried. Alex was momentarily thrown by the question, until it occurred to her that she hadn't actually talked about her previous postings with her partner.

"Yes," she confirmed. "Five years with Vice. Not exactly the most prestigious place for a female cop to be…"

"Let me guess," Jason said darkly. "You got to be the bait."

She smiled, and patted his hand reassuringly.

"Yes, but it's okay. None of us were ever forced into doing anything we weren't willing to do… or capable of doing."

"Was it dangerous?" Jason wondered, and Alex nodded.

"Yes… but like Goren said, being a cop is a dangerous job, plain and simple. Every job you do has an element of danger to it."

"Unless you're stuck behind a desk, doing paperwork," Goren pointed out. Alex fired him a warning look.

"Which I know you love doing," she retorted sarcastically, "so unless you'd like me to bring back all that paperwork for you that's waiting on your desk, I suggest you shut up."

Jason laughed softly. "You know, you two make a good match."

Both Bobby and Alex raised their eyebrows at that statement.

"Oh?" Bobby asked. Jason grinned at him.

"You don't see it? C'mon… Haven't you ever heard the expression 'opposites attract'?"

"Watch it, rookie," Alex warned him, lifting a cushion playfully. "Don't make me use this."

Jason laughed, then, holding up his hands defensively.

"Okay, I give. But I'm not taking it back. You _do_ make a good match."

An instant later, Jason gave a muffled grunt as the cushion hit him full in the face.

"No fair," he grumbled with mock annoyance as Alex shoved the cushion back in behind her. "I can't retaliate without risking getting charged for assaulting police officer!"

Alex smirked openly at him.

"Gosh, that's right, isn't it?"

A second later, she yelped as a cushion flew across the room, hitting _her_ in the face.

"Goren!" she burst out indignantly, even as Jason burst out laughing. Bobby offered her an apologetic smile that quickly fell away at the threatening look on her face.

"Hey… C'mon, Eames… You wouldn't… I'm wounded here!"

Alex seemed to be just gearing up to throw the cushion regardless when the doorbell rang.

"Saved by the bell," she growled, getting up and going to answer it. "And get that smirk off your face, Goren. I will get you back. You just aren't going to see it coming."

Bobby grimaced.

"Stupid me."

Jason laughed. "Yeah, stupid you."

"Watch it, junior," Bobby growled, but couldn't hide the sparkle in his eyes.

"Good match," Jason reaffirmed with a grin, and Bobby couldn't help but return the smile.

The truth was, he felt Jason was right. He and Alex Eames had only been partners for a little over two months, but he was feeling more confident in her company with every day that passed. Despite some uncertainty in the beginnings, she had stuck it out with him – though whether that was more to do with showing up the rest of the detectives of Major Case than actually wanting to make a genuine go of it, he would probably never know. She had stuck it out, and against all his usual instincts, he found himself trusting her more whole-heartedly than he had trusted anyone with, perhaps, the exception of Fin, and his old friend Ben Paxton.

They were not quite at that level of trust yet, but they were getting there. And, for the first time in a long while, Bobby felt that perhaps he _could_ feel confident. It was a feeling that he liked, a lot.

Alex returned, bringing Deakins with her.

"Captain…?" Bobby greeted him tentatively, feeling a sudden shift in the room's atmosphere. Something was wrong. He sensed it instantly, before Deakins had even had the chance to speak.

Deakins nodded in greeting.

"How are you feeling, Goren?"

"Been better," he answered vaguely.

"I don't doubt that," Deakins murmured. "Listen… I have some bad news."

Jason stiffened visibly.

"He's killed someone else, hasn't he? Alan… He's killed again."

"Yes," Deakins confirmed grimly. "There's been another murder. We believe Alan is responsible."

"Who?" Jason asked hoarsely. "Kim, Billy or Zack?"

For a moment, Deakins looked baffled. Then, he shook himself back to reality.

"No, Jason, your friends are safe. They were all put on planes yesterday afternoon. It was none of them."

"Then who?" Alex asked, frowning. Deakins was silent for a long moment before finally looking across at Bobby. The two men stared at each other for several long, painful seconds, and then Deakins answered softly.

"It was Ben."

The glass of water Bobby had been holding slipped from his fingers and fell unnoticed to the polished wood, shattering on impact.

"No," Bobby whispered, his already pale face turning to ash at the news. "No… That's not possible. You're wrong…"

"I'm sorry, Bobby," Deakins said softly, hating that he had to deliver such devastating news to a colleague who already had enough problems to deal with.

Bobby sat frozen, his breath coming in short, sharp bursts as he struggled to digest the news. Ben… Ben was dead… And he was responsible.

Abruptly, Bobby launched himself to his feet with surprising agility, given the fact that he had an arm and a leg in plaster. Grabbing his crutch, Bobby crossed the floor as fast as he could, disappearing into his bedroom and pulling the door closed behind him.

"Damn," Deakins muttered.

"Who's Ben Paxton?" Alex asked, frowning. She knew she'd heard the name mentioned to her before, but damned if she could remember when.

"He's the detective who took Goren under his wing years back, when Goren was banished to SVU. I spoke to Adrian Rice before I came here, and he told me that Paxton was effectively a surrogate father to Goren. Apparently it was Paxton who convinced Goren not to quit when he came out of hospital that time, and walked straight into an indefinite suspension."

"Christ," Alex muttered. "What a mess."

Deakins took a tentative step towards the bedroom.

"I'd better go and talk to him…"

"No," Alex said. "Captain, let me talk to him. Please?"

Deakins stared at her for a long moment, then nodded appreciatively.

"All right, Alex. Thankyou."

"For what? He's my partner, sir."

He smiled faintly, and nodded in acknowledgement of her words.

"Yes. He is. All right, I need to get going. Will you all be okay?"

Alex nodded.

"We'll be fine, Captain." She nodded towards the closed door of Bobby's bedroom. "He'll be fine, too."

"All right, then. I'll see you later."

"This is my fault, isn't it?" Jason asked in a strained voice once Deakins had gone. Alex hesitated, then walked over and sat back down next to the young man.

"No, Jason, it isn't. You aren't responsible for what your father does, and don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise."

"But…"

"Don't," she cut him off sharply. "Jason… Damn it, look… everyone makes a choice. Fifteen years ago, Goren and Detective Paxton had a choice. When your mother called Goren asking for help, they could have both chosen to ignore her. If they'd done that, then sure, Detective Paxton might still be alive now… And so would Tommy Oliver and Trini Kwan… but you'd be dead. And do you really think either Goren or Paxton could have lived with themselves if they hadn't chosen to act?"

"I don't know," Jason muttered.

"Well, I do know," Alex countered, "and the answer is no. I've only been Goren's partner for two months, but that's long enough for me to be able to say that with absolute certainty. He's a very compassionate person, Jason, and there's no way he could have chosen to ignore your mother's call for help. Everything that's happened since…? None of it is your fault. It's not his fault, either. If you want to go laying blame, you put it where it belongs."

"With Alan?" Jason asked meekly, and Alex nodded.

"Exactly. With Alan. Nowhere else."

Jason sighed softly.

"Thanks."

"Anytime. Now, will you be okay? I think I'd better go talk to my partner, see if he's okay."

Jason nodded.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. I'll clean up that broken glass off the floor, if you like."

She smiled gratefully. "Thankyou. That would be a help."

Alex rose up and, with a last critical look at the young man, walked across the floor to Bobby's bedroom. She knocked once and, when there was no answer from within, pushed the door open and went inside.

* * *

Alex opened the door to Bobby's bedroom to find the room in almost absolute darkness. She stood on the threshold for a long moment, peering into the murky blackness before venturing in.

"Jesus, Goren," she grumbled, as she fumbled around searching for a light switch, "how the hell do you get around in here without tripping over something?"

Her fingers finally located the errant switch, and light flooded the room to reveal her partner sitting on the edge of his bed, shoulders slumped and his face pressed into his left hand. She didn't think she had ever seen a man look as devastated as he did right then. Her heart went out to him, surprising herself with the amount of sympathy she felt for him.

"Could you leave me alone, please?" he asked, his voice sounding muffled and strained. Alex stood indecisively for a long moment before making up her mind and walking over to sit beside him on the bed. He looked up at her slowly, and her heart skipped just slightly at the sight of tears rimming his eyes.

"Are you deaf? I asked you to leave me alone."

There was an edge to his voice, but Alex paid it no heed. He was upset. She didn't blame him for lashing out, and she sure as hell wasn't going to take it personally.

"I heard you. I'm just ignoring you."

He started to turn away, but she caught his left shoulder to stop him.

"Ow!" he burst out, twisting away from her grip. Alex grimaced.

"I'm sorry, Goren. I forgot…"

"S'okay," he mumbled, reaching around awkwardly to rub the sore joint. She hesitated, then pushed his hand away and took over massaging his shoulder gently. He sat stiffly, liking the feel of her hands massaging his shoulder, but reluctant to give in and simply enjoy it.

"Will you relax?" she grumbled finally as she crawled around behind him on the bed and continued her ministrations. "I'm not going to hurt you. And if you're worried about the professionalism of this, maybe it'll make you feel better to know that I learnt this from my last partner. We did it all the time for each other when one of us was stressed or upset about something. So just relax and enjoy it, because if I kill my hands on your shoulders, it's going to be damned hard to explain to the captain."

He made a conscious effort to relax, at the same time not quite able to contain the smirk that found its way onto his face.

"I… I'm sorry, Eames."

"For what?"

"For… Well… For…"

She gave a short laugh.

"You can't even finish that sentence, can you? And you know why you can't finish it?" She went on without hesitating, not giving him the opportunity to reply. "It's because you have nothing to apologise for. You just found out an old friend is dead. You don't have to apologise for being upset about it, Goren."

He considered her words for a moment before replying.

"He… He wasn't just an old friend. When I was moved to SVU from the Two-Seven, everyone treated me like dirt. None of them wanted to give me a chance. I was there to be punished, and they all knew it. But Ben… He didn't treat me like that. He asked for Captain Rice to assign me to him, and then he did everything he could to make things easier on me."

"Sounds like he was a good guy," Alex murmured.

"He was," Bobby confirmed. He swallowed hard, then went on tremulously.

"He was pretty much the only friend I had for a long time. He took a huge risk when he decided to help me… after Melissa Scott phoned me that morning. He could have been suspended… or worse… and he had to know it. But he helped me anyway. And remember how I told you that afterwards, when I was on suspension, I really seriously considered quitting...?"

Alex nodded.

"I remember. I'm glad you didn't."

Bobby smiled tiredly.

"Well, Ben would have kicked my ass from here to Kingdom Come if I had. He told me when I was put on suspension that I wasn't to quit. He said I'd done the right thing, and even though it didn't seem like it at the time and even though he knew I didn't believe him, there were plenty of cops out there that agreed with him." Bobby sighed softly. "He was right. I didn't believe him."

Alex rubbed his shoulders gently.

"He was right, though. I know I've told you this already, but if you'd been in my parents' place that day when you and Paxton took down Scott…" Alex smiled sadly at the memory. "Dad knew Alan Scott by reputation rather than actually having ever met him, but a lot of his buddies knew him, and they were all of the same opinion, that he was a degenerate scumbag. None of them liked him. When Dad heard about what happened, he called all his retired buddies, and they all descended on our place for the biggest party we'd had since New Year. Goren, tell me something. Do you remember getting a big basket of flowers while you were in hospital?"

He was silent for a long moment.

"Why?"

"Because my dad's buddies passed a hat around, and they came up with a bit over a hundred bucks between them. Dad called the hospital and asked them to send the biggest basket of flowers that a hundred bucks could afford, and to send it to the room of the… quote, 'hero cop who saved Alan Scott's little boy'."

Bobby met that with a long silence. Alex moved back to sit beside him again.

"What is it?"

"A huge basket of flowers was delivered to Ben's room the night of that day. He said there was no card, or anything to say who it was from. I… I guess that was from your dad and his friends."

"That should have gone to you!"

"I think the brass was kind of keen to keep all of that sort of stuff away from me… Didn't want me thinking anyone actually agreed with what I'd done."

Alex was incensed.

"Those sons of bitches. Are you telling me you never got so much as a get well card while you in hospital?"

"Just… Just from Ben, and a couple of other friends," Bobby mumbled, staring hard at the floor.

Alex let her breath out in a frustrated rush.

"They really tried hard to force you out, didn't they?"

"They tried, and if it hadn't been for Ben, I might have given up and quit. He wouldn't let me quit, Eames. He… He really looked out for me. I… I just can't believe he's gone…"

A strange, choked sound forced its way out of Bobby's throat, and a moment later he finally broke down, sobbing into his hand.

Alex had experienced a partner breaking down in her presence just once before, and then she'd felt nothing but disgust and contempt for what she saw as an unnecessary display of emotion. To her quiet surprise, she felt no such disgust now, watching her newest partner crying softly beside her. Before she was fully aware that she was doing it, Alex slipped her arms around his broad shoulders, and hugged him gently.

"We'll get the bastard, Goren. I promise you we'll get him. He's not going to get away with what he's done, and I promise you that it's not going to get brushed under the carpet again. I'll make sure of it, and so will Deakins."

Slowly, his sobs quietened, and finally stilled as he regained some semblance of control over his emotions.

"Thankyou," he whispered finally. She smiled a little.

"You're welcome."

"N… Not just for this," he told her tremblingly. "Thankyou for… for letting me be your partner."

_For letting me be your partner_… His choice of phrasing left her momentarily speechless. Not thanks to her for being _his_ partner… But rather for letting him be _her_ partner. She suddenly realised he was speaking again, and had to force herself to come back to reality and pay attention.

"And if… if you want… you can call me Bobby."

Inwardly, she understood the significance of him making that offer to her, to call him Bobby, rather than 'Goren'. He was opening up, even if just a little to start with. He was opening up, and letting her in, letting her get close. It was a huge step for a cop who had plenty of reasons to be mistrustful of pretty much everyone around him.

"Not 'Robert'?" she queried, keeping her tone gentle so that he didn't get the wrong idea and think that she was mocking him. He blushed red anyway.

"My mom only ever called me Robert when she was… was mad at me. Otherwise, she called me Bobby. I… I prefer Bobby."

She rubbed his back soothingly, bemused at her almost maternal desire to protect this big bear of a man who came across as so endearingly innocent.

"Okay, then, Bobby."

It came out easily, and brought a smile to both their faces.

"And you know," she told him, "you don't have to call me 'Eames', if you don't want to. 'Alex' is fine. Whatever you prefer."

He smiled at her, a genuine smile that lit up his face and chased away some of the shadows that had gathered there.

"M… Maybe after hours… Alex."

She didn't argue, but instead smiled and nodded. She understood his otherwise cryptic response without having to ask for an explanation. He would happily call her Alex after hours, off duty, but while they were at work, he preferred to call her Eames. It wasn't merely to keep things on a professional level, she realised as they looked at each other. It was also an outward show of respect to her. She understood that, and she appreciated it."

"But I don't mind you calling me Bobby," he added quickly. "Anytime… It's okay."

Alex smiled again, but before she had a chance to reply, sounds from the living area of the apartment reached their ears. There was a loud crash, followed quickly by a cry of a pain that was cut off all-too-abruptly, as though the one crying out had suddenly had something shoved into their mouth.

"Stay here," Alex warned him as she rose up from the bed, drawing her gun from where it was clipped to her belt.

Bobby watched her walk quickly and silently to the door of his bedroom and open it cautiously, gun at the ready and on full alert. She disappeared from sight out of the bedroom, and a moment later there was a muffled grunt of pain from just outside the bedroom door, followed by a distinct thud.

"Eames…?" Bobby called out tentatively. There was no answer. After a split second of indecision, Bobby started to reach for his own gun, where it sat in its holster on his night stand. Before he could grab it, though, his bedroom door was kicked open and a man whom he had honestly hoped never to lay eyes on again appeared, dragging Jason with him. The young man's hands were handcuffed in front of him, and Alan Scott held a jagged piece of broken glass to his throat to keep him subdued.

"Get your fucking hand away from that gun," Scott snarled. "Or I'll spill this little bastard's blood right here and now."

Bobby froze, then slowly withdrew his hand.

_How_, he wondered, _did the son of a bitch get in_…

"Good," Scott growled. "Now, get up. Hurry up, I don't have all day."

Wincing at the pain through pretty much his entire body, Bobby picked up his crutch and got unsteadily to his feet. Scott sneered openly at him, and laughed cruelly at his pain.

"What's the matter, Goren? Does it hurt? You don't know what pain is, you son of a bitch, but you will. I promise you will know, by the time I'm done with you."

"Let Jason go," Bobby said tonelessly. Scott tightened his grip on Jason, and the broken glass dug deeper into his throat, cutting through the flesh and a thin line of scarlet blood trickled down his throat.

"You can't be serious."

"You want to take it out on someone?" Bobby pressed him. "Take it out on me, not Jason. I'm the one who got in your way."

Scott gave a guttural laugh.

"Do I look like I'm open for fucking negotiations, Goren? Now, move. We're leaving this dump, and going some place where we won't be likely to be interrupted. And if you so much as look like you're thinking about trying anything, I'll slit Jason's throat open before you can blink. Move!"

Bobby went, hobbling painfully out of the room. A quick glance around as he made his way to the door revealed Alex lying on the floor not far from his bedroom door, blood caked in her hair from a severe blow to the back of the head.

"Relax, she's not dead," Scott muttered as he dragged Jason along. "Not that I wouldn't have slit her throat, but I don't have the time and, frankly, I just couldn't be bothered."

It was all Bobby could do to hide his relief. That relief was drowned in dismay a moment later, though, when he headed out into the hallway to find the uniformed officer who had been standing guard at his door was slumped in a heap on the floor, dead from what appeared to be a single gunshot wound to the head.

"Keep moving," Scott snarled. "You can't do anything for him. Just worry your precious head about yourself, Bobby boy."

Bobby made his way along to the lift, longing to do something, but knowing that any wrong move would result in Jason's throat being cut.

"We're going down to the car park," Scott told him, and Bobby dutifully, if extremely reluctantly, pushed the corresponding button.

They rode down in silence, Bobby's mind on fire as he searched through reservoirs of knowledge for a solution. For once, he could think of nothing, his prodigious mind failing to provide him with an acceptable way out.

"Head to the left," Scott ordered him as the lift doors opened up onto the apartment building's underground car park. "Over by the wall, there's a black minivan."

Bobby went, noting that the vehicle was different to the one that had hit him just the day before. Scott anticipated his thoughts, and spoke in amusement.

"I already had a change of vehicle lined up yesterday after trying to clean you up outside One Police Plaza. You really didn't think I would have been stupid enough to keep that same van, do you?"

Bobby didn't reply to that. It was bad enough listening to Scott's grating laughter.

"All right, just stop there. Throw away that crutch."

When Bobby hesitated, Scott shoved the glass harder into Jason's throat, drawing a strangled sob of pain from the young man.

"Do it, Goren. Throw it aside. Right out of reach."

Bobby tossed it away, scowling deeply at Scott. The other man appeared unconcerned at the animosity being directed towards him from the detective.

"Good. You can lean against the van if you need to. By the way… you really are a resilient bastard, aren't you? I hit you head on yesterday, and you're out of the hospital a day later."

"It _was_ you," Bobby said flatly. Scott laughed out loud.

"Hell, yeah. And damn, it was satisfying, listening to the crunch as I hit you. Just a pity that pretty little slut of a partner of yours wasn't closer. I could have gotten two birds with one stone… so to speak. Tell me, how the fuck did a little bimbo like that get to Major Case, anyway? She fuck the Chief of Police? Or did she go all the way up the line to the Governor?"

Pure fury flashed across Bobby's face at the blatant insult to Alex and, with a strangled cry of rage he threw himself at Scott.

Taken by surprise, Scott was forced to let go of Jason to deal with the enraged detective who was, suddenly, right on top of him.

The two men struggled, but Alan already had the advantage of having both hands free, and no injuries to contend with, and he soon managed to wrestle Bobby around until he had the detective pinned to the ground. He wrenched Bobby's plastered right arm back, drawing a howl of pain from him. Then, grabbing a fistful of Bobby's hair, Scott slammed Bobby's face into the concrete floor.

The effect was instantaneous. Bobby slumped against the floor, knocked out cold by the brutal blow to the head. Alan grunted in satisfaction and was just getting up when a foot literally came out of nowhere, slamming into his side and knocking him to the ground.

Alan looked up in shock to find his son standing there, pale and bleeding, but otherwise intact and clearly prepared for a fight.

"Jason…" he growled, getting slowly to his feet. Jason took a deliberately step forward, standing protectively over the top of Bobby's unconscious form.

"Get the fuck away from us," Jason exploded. "I'll kill you, I swear to god I will."

"You couldn't if you wanted to," Alan spat, but couldn't help but feel uncertain as he looked into the angry depths of Jason's eyes.

"Couldn't I?" Jason countered softly. "If you know anything about me at all, _Daddy_, you ought to know that I'm a fifth dan black belt in karate. I'm legally registered as a lethal weapon. Now, if you don't get the fuck away from us, I promise you that I'll take you out myself. I'm fast, and I'm strong. Don't you think for even a second that I couldn't do it."

The two stood in a silent face off for what was probably only seconds, and yet felt more like hours to Jason. Then, finally, Alan reached behind his back and beneath his jacket, and pulled out a glock, which he aimed at Bobby's head.

"Are you fast enough to beat a bullet, Jason?" Alan asked coolly. "Because if you try to fight me now, that's what your cop buddy here is going to get. A bullet to the brain. You might be able to get the better of me… _Might_. I'm not guaranteeing anything. But he'll still be just as dead. Do you hear me, boy?"

In the end, Jason had no choice but to comply. He had been willing to risk his own life, but not Bobby's life as well. His hands dropped as he gave up miserably.

Smirking with triumph, Alan stepped in and struck the young man hard across the face, landing a blow close to his temple. Jason crumpled to the floor next to Bobby, knocked unconscious by the blow.

Alan stood for just a moment, observing his two new hostages with interest before opening up the van and dragging first Jason, and then Bobby into the back and covering both with a blanket to hide them from prying eyes. Then, still smirking to himself, Alan climbed into the van and drove out of the underground car park, heading at last for his final destination.

* * *

_tbc..._


	9. Interlude II: Things Fall Apart

The first thing Alex became aware of as she came back to awareness was the pain. She groaned softly, wanting nothing more than to sink back into the painless nothingness of sleep. It wasn't going to happen, though. Reluctantly accepting that she was, indeed, awake, Alex slowly forced her eyes open.

At first, nothing made sense. Everything was a fuzzy blur. Then, gradually, everything came back into focus, and she found herself staring up into the face of her captain.

"Captain…" she mumbled, trying to sit up. He pressed down gently on her shoulders, keep her from moving.

"Don't get up just yet, Alex. Just keep still. An ambulance is on the way."

"Don't need one," she protested, making a second attempt to get up, which Deakins foiled yet again.

"Don't argue with me, Alex. You at least need that knock on your head looked at."

Alex groaned again, and gave up trying to move. Deakins watched her for a long moment, then spoke carefully.

"Alex, what happened?"

She thought it over for a long minute before finally answering him.

"I was talking to Bobby… after you left…" She groaned again. "I'd left Jason in the living room to go and talk to him. I'm sorry, Captain…"

"You didn't do anything wrong," he told her firmly, keeping his amusement under wraps that, all of a sudden, she was calling him 'Bobby', rather than 'Goren'. "I didn't expect you to be able to keep them both in eyesight every second."

She sighed softly.

"While I was talking to Bobby, we heard a crash, and someone cried out in pain. I told Bobby to stay in his bedroom, and I went out to see what had happened. I hardly got out of the door when someone hit me over the head. Next thing I know, I'm waking up to your face." Panic flashed in her eyes. "Where's Bobby and Jason?"

"They're both gone," Deakins told her grimly. "I found Goren's crutch in the underground car park…"

"And?" Alex asked, frowning a little.

"And blood on the ground," he added reluctantly.

"What about Carson?" she asked, referring to the officer who had been standing guard at the door. Deakins didn't answer, and Alex quickly understood the truth from his silence.

"He's dead?"

"Yes, shot once in the head."

"Had to have been a silencer," Alex muttered. "We never heard anything until that crash…"

Deakins looked around, and his gaze went to the other side of the room, where one of the shelf units had collapsed, scattering books across the floor. He guessed that Scott had attacked Jason, and probably slammed him in the wall, causing the shelving to collapse. That would have been the loud crash that Bobby and Alex had heard, and probably the cause of the cry of pain they'd heard as well.

"All right," he murmured. "Just try and relax, Alex. The ambulance will here soon…"

"No," Alex muttered and she pushed herself up, ignoring her captain's protests. "Damn it… I'm okay. It's just a knock on the head, I'll be fine."

Deakins moved back, watching with disapproval as Alex sat up, and then got to her feet. She swayed unsteadily, and Deakins caught her arm to keep her from falling.

"I'm okay," she murmured, wincing at the pain in her skull. "We have to find them, Captain."

"We will," Deakins promised her, leading her over to sit in one of the armchairs. "We'll find them, Alex."

In the following minutes, the paramedics arrived, and were soon followed by a team from the NYPD CSU. While the paramedics tended to the knock on Alex's head, the CSU officers began processing, looking for vital evidence.

"You'll find blood in the car park under the building," Deakins told the lead CSI. "If you can determine what vehicle they were taken in, it'd be a help."

The CSI nodded her compliance.

"We'll do what we can, Captain Deakins."

Deakins then turned back to Alex.

"Is she all right?" he asked the paramedic. The young man nodded as he gently cleaned the wound.

"She'll be fine, Captain. It's not as bad as it looks. Head wounds often tend to look worse than they really are. We can take her to the hospital for x-rays though, to be certain…"

"I'm not going to the hospital," Alex snapped. "I'm fine."

Deakins raised an eyebrow quizzically at the paramedic, waiting for the final verdict. If the young man said Alex needed to go for further treatment, he'd see her go even if it was strapped to a gurney. The paramedic smiled just a little.

"I don't think it's necessary," he said finally. "It'd just be a precaution. If she feels that she's all right…"

The captain nodded, partly disappointed and partly relieved.

"Okay, then. Thankyou."

Minutes later, Deakins was leading Alex to the lift, away from Bobby's apartment.

"We need to get all the surveillance footage," Alex muttered. "And the security footage of the building itself…"

"It's all in hand, Alex. Let's just get back to One Police Plaza. We can plan our next steps from there."

"I'm sorry, Captain," Alex said with a soft sigh. "I've let you down… And I've let Bobby down, too."

Deakins wheeled around so abruptly that Alex nearly walked into him.

"Listen to me, Alex," he told her fiercely. "You listen to me, and listen hard. You haven't let anyone down. Not me, and especially not Goren. We had some of our most experience people working the surveillance on this building, and none of them picked Scott getting in here. I think we all made a mistake in that we forgot he used be a cop himself, and a damned good one. He knows all the tricks of the trade, and probably then some. Of course he wouldn't have forgotten any of that, and we were all idiots not to take it into consideration. If anyone should be shouldering the blame here, it should be me. But I'm not laying blame at anyone's feet, not yours, not mine, not anyone's. It isn't the time. We can all have a nice big attack of the guilts once this is resolved, but until then we all have to focus. Don't falter on me, Alex. I need you to have a clear head."

She pulled a face.

"You mean, aside from the budding migraine?"

He smiled grimly, and guided her into the lift.

"Yes, aside from the budding migraine. I'll get you a valium when we get back to the office."

"We are going to find them, right?" she asked softly, her voice taking on a tentative edge that she loathed.

"We're going to do our best," Deakins promised.

Alex fell silent, wishing miserably that she could find even some small comfort in her captain's words, but right then there was no comfort to be had. There was only fear, and uncertainty.

* * *

_tbc..._


	10. Into The Fire

Blackness. It was the first thought that came to Jason's mind as he slowly regained consciousness and, as his muddled thoughts tried to regain some sort of order, he wondered if he was blindfolded. It took him a good minute or two to realise that there was no blindfold covering his eyes, and that he could actually see in the dim light.

His head throbbed where Alan had struck him, but he doubted he was in as much pain as Bobby was likely to suffer when _he_ woke up.

Jason sucked in his breath sharply as he finally remembered clearly what had happened. Alex had gone to talk to Bobby, and he had started to clean up the broken glass, as he'd offered to do. He had been concentrating on carefully picking up the sharp slivers of glass when he'd sensed someone coming up behind him. He'd just started to turn around when a strong pair of hands grabbed him, hauled him up and threw him into the wall. He'd crashed against one of the many shelf units, crying out in pain, and before he had a chance to recover, Alan had been on him, belting him across the head hard enough to stun him, and handcuffing his wrists.

Jason remembered lying dazedly on the floor, watching helplessly as Alex came out of the bedroom, gun drawn. He couldn't even get a sound out to warn her, though, and had had no choice but to watch helplessly as Alan came up behind her and cracked her hard enough across the back of the head to knock her out. Then, Alan had come back to him and forced him up, keeping him in check with a jagged piece of broken glass pressed up under his chin.

He moaned softly. There had been nothing he could do. One wrong move at that point, and he would have been dead before he hit the floor. As much as he was aware that it was his father's intention to kill them both, a strong sense of self-preservation had stopped Jason from doing anything that would have conceivably resulted in near instant death.

And so here he was… wherever here actually was. Lifting his head – it felt strangely heavy on his shoulders, and he wondered vaguely whether Alan had perhaps doped him up with something – he looked around.

The first thing he focused on was the man sitting tied to a chair across from him. It was Bobby, and he looked pretty damned awful.

His plaster casts were gone, hacked away from his broken arm and leg in such a way that cruel lacerations had been left in the flesh. It also looked very much to Jason like his left leg had been re-broken. Jason supposed dimly that Bobby had perhaps woken up en-route to their current location, and that Alan had done that to him in one of his rages.

Bobby's shirt was also gone, and his upper body was a mess of cuts and bruises. Alan had really gone to town on him, Jason thought miserably. The detective's head was slumped forward, his chin against his chest. He was still unconscious, and probably would be for a long while, taking into account the head wound he'd received.

Abruptly, Jason became aware of someone else in the room. Looking around slowly, his fears and suspicions were confirmed at the sight of his father sitting nearby, watching him with intense interest.

"You've grown up."

Jason blinked, thrown by the odd comment.

"Yeah, I have," he said finally, grateful that his voice at least came out reasonably steady. He paused, then added viciously, "Thanks to Bobby, I at least had the chance to grow up."

Alan chuckled softly, and the sound left Jason feeling mildly disturbed.

"I wouldn't have killed you, Jason. I wouldn't have even killed your mother. If that son of a bitch right there… _Detective_ Goren hadn't interfered, your mother would still be alive."

"Somehow I find that hard to believe," Jason said bitterly. Alan shrugged.

"I don't give a fuck if you believe me or not. I know what the truth is. That's all that matters to me. And the truth is, if he hadn't butted in, I wouldn't have had to kill her. I would have punished her for sticking her nose in where it wasn't wanted, and I would have made sure she never did it again, but I wouldn't have killed her. So blame him for her death, because he's the one that made me kill her."

"You're out of your mind," Jason said softly. Again, Alan shrugged.

"So they said at my trial. But before you pass judgement on me, you ought to know something about your buddy there. Genetics aren't exactly on his side where sanity is concerned."

"What are you talking about?" Jason burst out, frightened and angry at Alan's ranting.

"His mother's schizo," Alan said with a sneer. He stood up and walked over to the unconscious detective, looking down at him with a cruel smile. "I learnt a lot at Stanhope, Jason. Especially about this sorry son of a bitch. His mother's a schizo who's permanently locked up at Carmel Ridge. That's a psyche hospital just outside the city limits."

"What's your point?" He wanted to add _you fucked up piece of shit_, but thought better of it, considering he'd just noticed the awfully big knife in his father's hand.

"Don't you know anything, boy? Schizophrenia's hereditary. Bright boy here is a prime candidate to have a psychotic episode."

Jason glared at him.

"Schizophrenia takes hold when you're young, usually in your early twenties. People over the age of forty rarely develop it."

"Well," Alan said with a sneer as he grabbed a fistful of Bobby's hair and lifted his head, then traced the tip of the blade across his right cheek, leaving a thin laceration, "better safe than sorry, right?"

"So, what? You're using that as justification to kill him?"

Alan looked back at Jason, grinning viciously.

"I don't need a reason, Jason. Just like I don't need a reason to kill you. I'm just going to do it anyway."

"Can't you just leave him?" Jason pleaded, deciding to try a different tact. "Please, just leave him alone. You've already hurt him badly… If you want to kill me, then just do it, but leave Bobby alone! Please…"

"You'd really give yourself up willingly to save him?" Alan asked curiously. Jason blinked back tears, but more came.

"He did once for me," Jason said softly, remembering with acute pain the way that Bobby had shielded him with his body so long ago. Alan nodded thoughtfully.

"You're right, he did. Sorry, sport. No can do. I didn't go to all this trouble just to let him go now. Besides, I've killed a cop. That's good for a hot needle in the arm. Now, dying doesn't bother me, but if I am going to die for this, it's damn well going to be worth it."

Alan turned and walked slowly back to his chair and sat down again, his eyes glinting in the darkness.

"No, he has to die. You both do. I'm just waiting for _Bobby_ to wake up, and then all I'll have to do is decide which of you gets to die first, and which of you is the unlucky bastard that gets to watch the other die before him."

* * *

Alex emerged from the eleventh floor bathroom still feeling as sick to her stomach as when she'd run in there. She didn't give a damn that she'd literally gotten sick in front of her male colleagues. Indeed, they were lucky that she'd had to run for the bathroom. Otherwise, she might just have decked one of them.

The reason for the sudden upheaval of her stomach was a callous comment from Ray Gatlin. After waiting for Deakins to disappear into the sanctuary of his office, Gatlin had turned to her and, with a smug grin on his ugly face, had said 'Don't worry about it, Alex. When your partner turns up dead, I'll comfort you."

The comment had been tasteless and unnecessary, but it was Gatlin saying 'when your partner turns up dead', not 'if', that had tipped her right over the edge. Already sick to her stomach with guilt over letting Bobby be abducted by Scott, Alex had had to bolt for the bathroom, making it just in time.

Now, she came back into the bullpen with a moderately more settled stomach, and itching to take her anger and frustration out on someone. Preferably, someone called Ray Gatlin.

Upon coming back into the squad room, she was mildly surprised, and somewhat disappointed, to find Gatlin was nowhere in sight.

"Where is he?" she demanded.

"He had to go get some ice for his face," David McCall said, sounding none too sympathetic. When she looked at him blankly, Chris McKenzie spoke with more than a hint of amusement.

"McCall decked him. Punched the jerk right in the face. Listen, Eames… About Goren…"

"I know," she said flatly. "None of you can stand him, and you won't be sorry if he's killed. Thanks. I got the message."

"No, you didn't," McCall snapped. "Let us finish, will you?"

She looked around at them, puzzled.

"What, then?"

"We've all seen Goren operate over the last couple of months," McCall told her. "Sure, he's a little on the weird side… but he's good at what he does. That's pretty damned obvious. Look, what I'm trying to say is this. None of us want to lose him. He… He fits in here. If you need help now, just tell us. We all want him back safe."

Alex couldn't hope to mask her relief at the open offer of support, but it did nothing to ease her anxiety at knowing her partner was missing, and she had no idea where to start searching.

"Hey," someone said suddenly. "Isn't that Briscoe and Green, from Homicide?"

Alex looked and, sure enough, she recognised Lennie Briscoe and Ed Green from Homicide had just entered the Major Case Squad room. McCall walked over to greet them.

"Hey, what brings you guys over to this part of town?"

"Hey, Dave," Briscoe greeted him. "We need to see Captain Deakins. Where can we find him?"

"His office is over there," McCall answered.

"And what about Robert Goren's partner?" Green asked. Alex stepped forward.

"That's me."

"You're Alex Eames?" Briscoe asked, and Alex nodded. "Well, you'll be wanting to hear this, too."

Alex felt her entire body tense, but Green spoke before she could gather her thoughts to ask the dread question.

"He's not dead, Eames. We got a tip-off from a snitch of ours. We might know where he is."

Alex sucked in her breath sharply, and had to fight to keep a lid on her surging hope.

"Captain's this way," she said abruptly, and stalked off to Deakins' office. Briscoe and Green watched her go, then Briscoe looked questioningly at McCall.

"_She's_ Goren's partner?"

"Nah, man," McCall said with a wide grin. "Goren's _her_ partner."

Briscoe and Green exchanged grins, and hurried to catch up with Alex.

* * *

Deakins looked up in mild frustration at the sound of someone knocking on his door. He was going almost out of his mind with worry, and the last thing he needed was to be interrupted unnecessarily.

"Come in," he called out, trying to keep his voice even and only partly succeeding. The door swung open, and Alex walked in, followed by two cops that Deakins knew by reputation.

"Detectives Briscoe and Green, right?" Deakins asked, and the two men nodded in confirmation. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"

Both detectives took the liberty of ignoring the sharp inflection in Deakins' voice. He was worried sick with one of his detectives missing and in serious danger. Neither one was going to take it personally if he was a little snappish with them.

"Sir, we were just contacted by one of our informants. We may have a positive location on your missing detective."

Deakins rose up slowly out of his chair, looking at the two detectives with intense interest.

"You know where Goren is?"

"We hope so," Green said. "Our captain is seeing Jack McCoy now about a warrant. He sent us here to let you know. We're heading straight to the location from here."

"Where?" Deakins asked tensely as he stood up and grabbed his jacket. Briscoe and Green exchanged glances. They had come out of courtesy, not to extend an open invitation to Major Case to join the operation. Deakins caught the looks on their faces, and easily interpreted them.

"Detective Eames and I are coming with you, gentlemen. Goren is my detective, and he's Eames' partner. We are not staying behind and waiting to hear from you."

"Okay," Briscoe conceded reluctantly. "Fine. But just the two of you, no one else."

Deakins nodded.

"Thankyou. Now, let's move. You can fill us in on the way there."

* * *

"There's an empty apartment block in the Bronx," Green explained as Briscoe guided the car through the heavy New York traffic. "Our snitch spotted a guy matching Alan Scott's description coming and going from there a lot yesterday. Then today… not that long ago, he told us he saw a black minivan pull up, and that same guy got out and dragged what looked to him like two bodies out of the back and into the building. He tried to get a closer look, but all he could tell us aside from that was that our suspect seems to have set himself up in the basement."

"We've got the building plans," Briscoe said to them over his shoulder. "SWAT should be there already. We'll get Goren out of there, I promise."

"Goren isn't the only hostage in there," Deakins pointed out. "Alan Scott has his son in there, as well."

Briscoe nodded.

"We know, Captain. Don't worry, we'll do everything we can to make sure they get out of there in one piece."

* * *

As promised, a SWAT team was waiting when they arrived.

"We flew a chopper over the building, and did a thermal scan," the lieutenant in charge, Lieutenant Harry Reed, explained. "There are three people in there. One of them appears to be pretty badly hurt, but still alive."

"That has to be Goren," Deakins said as he looked at the print-out that the lieutenant handed to him. "He was already badly injured after being hit by a car yesterday."

"Well, his thermal readings are pretty weak, whoever it is. I'd say that if it is your detective, then he's been hurt worse since yesterday. We don't have a whole lot of time, Captain Deakins. We have to move in pretty soon."

Deakins looked around them. There was only a couple of SWAT officers there, waiting, compared to how many actually constituted the number of a fully complimented SWAT team.

"Your people are already in place?" he asked as he pulled on the vest that was offered to him. A quick glance told him that Alex was doing the same. Like him, she was not going to be left behind to wait.

"Yes, sir. Two of my people entered the building as soon as we got here. They don't have a visual yet on the suspect or the hostages, but they've reported that they could definitely hear voices from in the basement, and that one of the voices was definitely a hostile."

"Okay," Deakins murmured, feeling confident that they had the right place. Reed regarded him with concern.

"Captain, please don't take this the wrong way, but are you sure that you and Detective Eames want to come along? "

Deakins smiled grimly, understand the lieutenant's uncertainty at him and Alex joining them.

"Lieutenant, I accept that this is your operation now, and I know you would probably prefer that I stay out here, and don't interfere in any way, but I can't do that. Now, I will hang back, and let you people take the lead, but don't ask me to stay out here. I can't do that. Not when the life of one of my detectives is on the line."

Reed nodded in reluctant concession.

"I understand, but please, do as I ask. For your own sakes, and the sake of that son of a bitch's two hostages, do exactly as I tell you."

Deakins nodded, even as he withdrew his gun from its holster, and gave it a quick check.

"We will, Lieutenant. Now, let's move."

* * *

"Why the fuck isn't he waking up?"

Jason looked up tiredly at Alan's furious outburst. His father was becoming steadily ever more enraged by Bobby's failure to regain consciousness, and Jason had begun to fear that he would eventually lose patience and simply go ahead and kill Bobby.

He grimaced a little. Some choice there was. Whichever way it went, he and Bobby were dead. Whichever way it went, his psychotic father had won.

In the end, he'd given up on any attempts to reason with the crazy man. No matter what he said, no matter how he said it, his words were constantly twisted by his lunatic father. So, in the end, he had simply fallen silent and waited. Now, he looked across to Bobby with growing fear. What he dared not voice in front of Alan was his fear that the second blow to the head was behind Bobby's failure to wake up.

Jason was no medical expert, but he knew enough to understand that the second blow to the head that Bobby had received had the potential to set off a deadly chain reaction that could result in a very painful death. His gaze went briefly to Alan, and to the long-bladed knife that rested on his lap. Not that it seemed to matter all that much, he conceded reluctantly to himself. One or another, it seemed they were both going to die. The question now, was how?

Ever more furious, Alan suddenly launched himself to his feet and strode over to where Bobby sat slumped on the chair that he was tied to. Grabbing his hair, Alan yanked his head up, and screamed at the unconscious man.

"Wake up! Damn you, wake up!"

"You hit him too hard," Jason said dully. "After yesterday, you hit him too hard. He's not going to wake up."

Alan glared around at him.

"Shut the fuck up, you worthless little bastard."

Jason didn't flinch in the face of his father's anger. After all, what did it matter if his father became enraged and killed him outright? It was going to happen anyway, so did it really matter if Alan was provoked into carrying it out sooner than he planned?

"Why should I? You're just going to kill us anyway."

Alan released his grip on Bobby's hair, letting his head fall back to his chest, and turned back to face his son.

"That's right, you little fuck. And guess what? You just helped me decide who gets to die first."

Lifting the knife, Alan Scott advanced on his son.

* * *

"_Lieutenant_," a voice spoke over the radio that the SWAT lieutenant carried with him. "_We have to move. He's going to kill the kid._"

"Move in," Reed ordered, breaking into a run as he crossed the floor, heading towards the stairwell. "Now!"

* * *

Alan was just lifting the knife with the intention of slashing it across Jason's throat when he heard it. His head came up slowly as the sound of footfalls somewhere above them caught his attention.

"No…" he muttered. "No fucking way… How the fuck did they find us?"

Jason looked around, confused. He didn't know what his father was hearing. He could hear nothing himself, and it seemed to be just another lunatic rant. But then, moments later, he heard what his father was hearing, and it was a sound that sent his hopes sky-rocketing. Someone was definitely coming. He could hear them on the stairs, coming down at a run. He could only hope that they were cops.

Even as Jason watched, Alan darted over and dropped into a crouch behind Bobby, effectively using the detective's body as a shield. A moment later, SWAT team members burst into the basement room, weapons at the ready.

"Give it up, Scott," Reed demanded, trying to move around to a position that would give him a clean shot at the killer. "You give yourself up right now, and you might just come out of this alive."

"He's got a knife," Jason said hoarsely.

"Shut up, you fuck," Alan snarled to Jason. Then, to Reed, "What the hell makes you think I _want_ to walk out of this alive?"

Reed glanced across the room, to where Jim Deakins and Alex Eames had followed the SWAT team in. Alan had positioned himself in such a way that none of them had him in clear sight, and there was no way to take him out without shooting through Bobby Goren to do it. Loathed though he was to shoot a fellow cop, if there was no other way to take Alan Scott down, then that was what he would do.

They were trapped in a stand-off of the worst sort – he knew damn well that Alan was not going to willingly give up either of his hostages, and he didn't seem to care if he died, as long as he had the chance to take at least one of them out first. Reed guessed that he wanted both Bobby Goren _and_ his son dead, or he would have killed the detective by now. But one wrong move, and the lunatic hiding behind the cover of Bobby Goren's bulky form would probably decide to just cut his losses and Bobby would be the one to pay the ultimate price.

Reed tightened his grip on his gun. His bullets were armour-piercing quality, and would easily cut straight through Bobby's body to take out Scott. The danger, and it was a big one, was that a shot like that to his upper body would probably kill him, not to mention the risk that it _wouldn't_ kill Scott outright, giving the killer enough time to use his knife to finish the job with his hostage.

Whichever way it went, Bobby Goren's chances of surviving this situation were slim, at best. Reed locked his jaw, and focused his aim. It was time to end it. All he could hope was that his actions would not result in an innocent man's death.

On the other side of the room, Alex saw the confliction on Reed's face, and realised with horror just what he was steeling himself to do. Though the tactical, logical side of her brain agreed that shooting Scott _through_ Bobby was the only option, the emotional side screamed in protest that Bobby's already battered body couldn't possibly take the shock, and that to do it would probably kill him.

She moved around carefully, ignoring the look she got from her captain, and was soon at Reed's side. She knew she didn't have her partner's manipulative skills to wheedle a suspect into giving up, but she had to try something before she saw her partner shot right in front of her.

Before she even had the chance to think of something to say to try and defuse the situation, though, her gaze fell on Bobby and realisation hit. _He was awake…_

His head had come up just a little, and he was looking straight at her through half-closed eyes. Blood covered the better part of his face from a fresh head wound, and it looked as though he'd had his face mashed into something somewhere along the line. It seemed to her that he barely had the strength to lift his head up at all, and yet he managed somehow to do just that.

He was definitely awake, and at least partially alert… She wondered whether he was aware of what was going on, if he knew that Alan Scott was crouching right behind him with a knife at the ready. She wondered if he knew just how near he was to dying.

Her eyes locked with his, and in that moment, she knew he was aware of everything. A moment later, she saw something else in his eyes, something that she didn't like the look of in the least. It was a look of very clear intent that she saw in his gaze, and though she couldn't be absolutely certain, she felt she had a pretty good idea of what he was planning to do.

Even as she watched, he tilted his head up just a fraction, and offered her a fleeting smile, and then she understood.

Panic clutched at her chest, freezing the very breath in her throat. If he did what he'd just indicated, sure it would give them the opportunity they needed to arrest Alan Scott without anyone else being injured or killed, but assuming that Alan had the blade of his knife resting against Bobby's back, such an action would quite conceivably get him killed.

She looked frantically from Bobby to Reed, and realised with helpless dismay that it was going to be one or the other, shot or stabbed. Talk about being caught behind a rock and a hard place, she thought dismally.

In the end, Bobby took his fate into his own hands. Even as his fellow officers watched, the detective suddenly gathered what strength he still had, and rocked back as hard as he could on his chair, sending it crashing over and landing squarely on top of Alan. A cry of pain filled the air, though whether it was from Bobby or Alan, none of them were totally sure. SWAT members rushed in, some of them lifting Bobby up off the floor, chair and all, while the others quickly subdued Alan, handcuffing his wrists tightly behind his back before he could do anymore harm.

"Please get him loose," Alex pleaded, her attention exclusively on her partner.

The ropes that held him to the chair were quickly cut through and, without them to hold him in place, Bobby crumpled to the floor, his strength completely gone.

"Mary Mother of God," someone muttered. The blade of the knife that Alan had been holding was buried in Bobby's back, all the way to the hilt. Alex found herself reaching for it automatically, to pull it out, only to have Reed grab her wrist to stop her.

"Don't touch it," he warned her. "Wait for the paramedics, Detective. They're on their way." He looked around, and motioned with his hand for. "Someone untie the kid, make sure he's okay. And get that other piece of shit out of here, before I change my mind about shooting him."

"I'm all right," Jason said breathlessly as one of the SWAT cops untied him. "I'm not hurt. It's just a few nicks and bruises."

Once free of the ropes, Jason pulled away from the officer who was trying to check him over, and scrambled across the floor to where Bobby lay.

"Is he going to be okay?"

Alex didn't answer, and didn't hear whether anyone answered. Her attention was focused purely on Bobby, on the wounds he'd suffered and on her own grief and guilt that it had managed to get this far. She tried desperately to keep her eyes off the knife that was buried in his back, looking instead to his half-open eyes and trying to keep his attention on her.

"Bobby?" she asked softly, reaching out to gently brush her trembling fingertips over his cheek, noting the bleeding laceration across his cheek with a heated, but short-lived anger. She noticed that he was shivering, and it occurred to her that it was damned cold in the basement, and he'd been stripped of both his shirt and sweater.

"He's cold," she said, hating how strained her voice sounded. "Can't we get something to cover him with?"

Someone, she didn't see who, pulled off their coat and draped it carefully over the wounded detective. She looked back to him and saw a gratitude in his eyes that he couldn't vocally express.

"It's okay," she whispered, oblivious to the multiple officers gathered around, watching in stricken silence. "I've got your back, Bobby. Just hang in there a little longer, and you'll be okay. You hear me? You hang in there!"

But even as she spoke, he gave a last shudder, and his eyes closed.

Her heart skipped with panic, but she felt some tiny spark of relief at the realisation that he was still breathing, at least. Of greater concern, though, was the thin line of blood that trickled from the corner of his mouth.

A moment later, the paramedics finally arrived, and Alex found herself shoved rather unceremoniously out of the way as the medics began treating their patient.

"We can't get this knife out here," one of them stated grimly to no one in particular. "We have to get him to the hospital, now." He looked around and quickly found the gaze of Lieutenant Reed. "Can we have some help from a couple of your guys? We need to get him onto a stretcher without jostling that knife too much."

"Binkman!" Reed ordered. "Crandall, both of you get over here and help."

The two officers hurried over and between them and the paramedics, they lifted Bobby's body onto a stretcher to carry him with great care out of the basement and to a waiting ambulance.

"He's going to be okay, isn't he?" Jason asked shakily.

"We hope so," Deakins said grimly as he helped Alex to her feet. The adrenalin was fading now, and it was all Alex could do not to simply collapse then and there. Jason looked watched as the stretcher bearing the detective was carried carefully back up the stairs.

"He has to be," Jason said finally, barely aware of it when someone draped a blanket around his shoulders and ushered him gently towards the stairs.

"What if he's not?" Alex asked softly as Deakins guided her along. "Captain, what if he's not okay?"

"He will be," Deakins said decisively. "Think positively, Alex. He will be all right."

But as they ascended the steps, even Deakins couldn't help but wonder at the truth of his own words.

* * *

_tbc..._


	11. After The Fact

_St Clare's Hospital_

"Jason's parents shouldn't be too far away," Deakins said, almost as an afterthought when he and Alex had been sitting in the waiting room for a couple of hours. Bobby had been rushed off to surgery almost immediately on arrival, while Jason was being seen to in the ER. As he'd claimed, with the exception of a single knock to the head, his own injuries consisted primarily of small cuts and bruises. Aside from the shock of all that had happened, Jason was more or less unharmed. Bobby, unfortunately, was another matter entirely.

Alex didn't answer, lost in her own thoughts and oblivious to her captain. Deakins watched her wordlessly for a minute before speaking in a slightly firmer tone of voice.

"You ought to get that bump on your head looked at properly while we're here. Alex? Did you hear me?"

"I heard," she said dully. "I don't need to see anyone for it. It's fine."

Deakins watched her thoughtfully, then reached up and very gently brushed his fingertips across the spot where Alan had struck her. Her response was instantaneous. She howled in pain, jerking away from him, and a strangled sob escaped her as her hands came up to gingerly cover the wound.

"If that's what you think is fine…" Deakins growled warningly.

"Okay," Alex choked out. "All right, I'll see a doctor. But please, can it at least wait until we hear how Bobby is?"

He couldn't begrudge her that, and nodded with a sigh.

"All right, Alex. But I expect you to report to the ER straight away, as soon as we know his condition. No more excuses, and if you make me pull rank on you, I promise you'll regret it."

She pulled a face, but didn't protest further.

"Tell me something…?" Deakins asked after another prolonged silence.

"What?" she asked. He decided to ignore her snappish tone, putting it down to a combination of stress and pain.

"At what point did he go from being 'Goren' to 'Bobby'?"

Alex met that question with silence. Finally, she answered, deciding that Deakins was professional enough not to misunderstand.

When you left, after telling us about Ben Paxton, I went and talked to Bobby. I won't go into what was said… but he told me to call him Bobby… if I wanted to. I told him he was welcome to call me Alex, but he said he preferred to call me 'Eames', at least when we're on duty."

Deakins smiled at that.

"If nothing else, he's very professional."

"It's not so much a matter of him being professional," Alex said quietly. "It's respect, Captain. He wants everyone to know he respects me. I appreciate that."

He nodded thoughtfully. "I know."

She looked over at him.

"I'm glad you were willing to fight for him, sir."

He couldn't resist a smile. "I'm always willing to put a fight when it's worth the effort, Alex. Goren was worth the effort… and so are you. You could be my best team, you know, you and Goren. If you keep going on together the way you have been, you could be just about the best team the NYPD has seen for a long time."

She looked away from him again, wishing she could feel some comfort at his words. There was nothing, though, only an incredible sense of guilt that just wouldn't go away.

Deakins was still watching her, aware that something was bothering her greatly, but unable to pinpoint exactly what it was. Before he had the opportunity to ask her anything, though, a couple entered the waiting room, spotted him and Alex and headed quickly over to them. Guessing that this couple was Jason's adoptive parents, Deakins rose up out of his seat to meet them.

"Dr and Mrs Scott?"

The man nodded.

"Yes, I'm Donavon Scott. This is my wife, Sarah."

Deakins accepted the man's outstretched hand.

"I'm James Deakins. This is Detective Eames. It's good to meet you both."

"Please, is Jason all right?" Sarah asked anxiously. Deakins nodded, relieved that he could at least provide someone with some good news.

"He's fine, Mrs Scott. He's in a minor state of shock, and he has a few cuts and bruises, but other than that he's intact. He's still being seen to by the doctors in the ER, but you should be able to see him soon."

Sarah sighed heavily. "Thank God for that."

"And what about Alan?" Donavon asked.

"Locked up," Deakins reassured him. "Permanently, this time."

Donavon frowned darkly. "Good… Although, I have to admit that I'm sorry someone didn't just shoot the son of a bitch, and put him out of all our misery."

Deakins grimaced. "Well, he almost was, except for Detective Goren's actions."

"How do you mean?" Donavon asked, puzzled. "I thought Alan was holding Detective Goren hostage along with Jason?"

"He was," Alex spoke up. "Alan took cover behind him when we got there with SWAT, and none of us could get a clear shot at him. Lieutenant Reed was going to shoot him through Goren…"

"_Through_ him?" Sarah echoed in horror, and Deakins nodded.

"When there's no other alternative, they'll take whatever shot they have, even if it's through the hostage. Goren knew it would have been a possibility."

"Except, he got in first," Alex said. "He pushed his chair over backwards, so that he landed on top of Scott. It gave us the chance to arrest him…"

"But Detective Goren was injured in the process?" Donavon guessed, and Deakins nodded in grim confirmation.

"Alan was holding a knife to his back at the time," Deakins explained, and both Donavon and Sarah cringed in anticipation. "The knife went all the way in, up to the hilt. He's in surgery right now… We're waiting to hear whether he's all right."

"It's serious, then?" Sarah asked in concern. Deakins nodded.

"Yes, I'm afraid it is."

Donavon and Sarah exchanged looks, then sat down together to wait with Deakins and Alex.

"Well, we'll wait with you, if that's all right," Donavon said quietly. Deakins smiled his gratitude for their support.

"Of course, and thankyou. We appreciate it."

* * *

Jason's face lit up as his parents came through into the cubicle in the ER along with Alex and Deakins.

"Mom! Dad…"

Sarah hurried over and wrapped him up in a fierce hug.

"My baby… Are you okay? _Really_ okay?"

"I'm fine," Jason reassured her, his voice muffled by her shoulder. "Really, Mom..."

When he'd finally managed to detach himself from his mother's embrace, he looked anxiously over at Deakins and Alex.

"How's Bobby? Have you heard anything? No one will tell me anything."

"We haven't heard anything," Deakins told him reluctantly. "As far as we know he's still in surgery. We just have to hope and pray that he'll be all right."

Jason sat back with a thud, then winced at the jarring pain through his body.

"Ow…" he muttered. "That was dumb."

"Take it easy, kid," Alex told him. "You'll feel lousy enough tomorrow without exacerbating it now."

"Gee, thanks, Alex," Jason said dryly, and she had to smile despite the circumstances.

"Jason," Donavon growled, only half joking. "It's Detective Eames…"

"It's okay," Alex said with a soft laugh. "We've already argued that one out. He's got official permission to call me Alex… Or, at least until he's officially a rookie cop, and _then_ it's back to Detective Eames."

Jason grinned, but that smile soon dropped away as a doctor came through the curtains into the cubicle.

"Doctor…?" Deakins asked, and the woman smiled reassuringly at them.

"Yes, I'm Dr Andrews, and before you ask, yes, I'm here to tell you about Detective Goren's condition. I thought you'd like to know as soon as possible. He's going to be all right."

The relief on all five faces was palpable. Dr Andrews went on quietly.

"He's out of surgery. He's going to need a fair bit of recovery time, and he won't be moving anywhere very quickly for a while, but he _is_ going to recover."

"Can we see him?" Alex asked, not quite able to keep the anxiety out of her voice.

"Yes, I think that should be okay," Dr Andrews replied. "He's just been moved into a ward from Recovery, and he is awake, although I can't guarantee just how alert he'll be."

Deakins nodded.

"Detective Eames and I would like to see him, thankyou, Doctor." He looked back to Donavon, Sarah and Jason. "I'll come and see you again before you're discharged, Jason. We have just a few things to sort out."

Jason nodded.

"Okay, sir. Ah… Could you tell Bobby I'm sorry…?"

Deakins smiled reassuringly at him. "I'll tell him, Jason, but it's not necessary."

Then they hurried out after the doctor.

"You don't have anything to be sorry about, Jason," Donavon told him gently once they'd gone. Jason sighed softly.

"I know… I can't help feeling like I need to apologise, though. And I know it's not my fault, that none of what Alan did was my fault, but it was still _because_ of me, wasn't it?"

Donavon sighed. "Maybe, Jason, but that still doesn't make you responsible."

Jason lay silently, staring up at the ceiling as the grief and shock finally started to take hold.

"They're gone, Dad. Tommy… and Trini… He killed them both… He killed them because of me."

Donavon reached across and gently gathered his son to him. A moment later, Jason finally broke down in a flood of tears as he finally let go of the horror of everything that had happened.

"Let it go," Donavon murmured, hugging him tightly. "It's okay, just let it go. My poor boy…"

"I'm going to have to testify, aren't I?" Jason asked finally in a strained voice once his sobs had subsided. "Against Alan, I mean. I'll have to testify again."

"Yes, you will," Donavon confirmed. "And this time, you'll have to be in the courtroom with him. Do you think you'll be able to cope with that?"

"I have to," Jason whispered. "I have to cope with it. It's not just for myself, though… It's for Bobby, as well. So… So we can both be safe from him."

"That's true," Donavon agreed. "If you both want to have some peace of mind, it's something you'll both need to do."

Jason shuddered.

"I wanted to do something to protect Bobby… like he protected me when I was just a kid. I felt so damned helpless, tied to that chair. I was so scared, but I was angry, too. I kept thinking, why the hell couldn't he just leave us alone?"

"He's a sick man, Jason, but that's no reflection on you. The important thing is knowing that he's finally been caught, and he won't be able to hurt anyone again. Not you, not Detective Goren, and not anyone else. It's going to be all right, Jason. It might hurt for a long time, boy, but it is going to be all right. Do you hear me?"

"Yeah," Jason whispered. "I hear you. Thanks, Dad."

Donavon smiled sadly.

"You're welcome, son."

* * *

Bobby was, indeed, awake when Alex and Deakins came in. He lay awkwardly, with a special pillow propped under him to take as much pressure as possible off the knife wound in his back.

"Second time in three days," Deakins commented dryly as he and Alex walked over to the bedside of their recovering colleague. "Damn, Goren, if you really wanted time off work this badly, all you had to do was ask."

The joke fell flat. Bobby couldn't summon the strength to so much as smile. Sparing Deakins a wry look, Alex leaned over and gently grasped his left hand in hers.

"How are you feeling, Bobby?"

"Been better," he mumbled, echoing his words of that same morning, with even less enthusiasm.

"You're going to be okay, though," Alex murmured. She hesitated, then spoke in a shaky voice. "Bobby, I'm sorry…"

He looked over at her, some clarity returning to his eyes as he struggled to focus.

"What for?"

"I let you down," she said, feeling stricken all over again. "I'm so sorry…"

"Don't be," he murmured tiredly. "Wasn't your fault, Eames."

Alex bit down on her lower lip for a long moment before speaking again, barely able to get out what she wanted to say without her voice cracking.

"I've been thinking… perhaps, when you're ready to get back to work… You might be better off with a new partner."

Bobby stared at her, the dazed and pained look in his eyes fading to make way for plain shock. Deakins, too, was looking at her as though she'd grown a second head.

"Are you out of your mind?" Bobby asked hoarsely. "I don't… don't want another partner. _You're_ my partner."

"You could have been killed, Bobby!" she protested. "I let that son of a bitch take both you and Jason, and I was supposed to be in charge of protecting you! What sort of a partner lets that happen?"

He watched her through half-closed eyes that were still alert.

"What sort of a partner digs her heels in, and won't be left behind when her partner's life is in danger?"

That silenced her. He was right, of course. Once they'd known there was a clue to where Bobby and Jason were, she'd refused to entertain the thought of being left behind, and she had refused to stay outside when SWAT had descended on the apartment building in the Bronx.

Of course, Deakins had been just as adamant, but she knew he would have had the same reaction for any of his detectives. She wouldn't have.

"We're… We're good for each other," Bobby said softly. "Please… don't leave me now."

"He's right," Deakins told her with a smile. "You are good together, and it'd be a huge shame to split you up now."

Alex stood silently for a long minute, considering their words. She had to concede that over the last couple of months, working with Bobby had turned out to be extremely fulfilling. Sure, it had been a little hairy to start with, but they were working their differences out all right, weren't they? And, more importantly, she actually liked the quirky detective.

It didn't take her long to accept in her own mind that she didn't want a new partner now any more than he did.

"Are you sure you can cope with having a woman for a senior partner?" she teased him lightly, and a small smile lit up his pale face.

"I can cope with you… if you can cope with me."

Alex paused at that, pretending to think it over, and Bobby burst out laughing, only to have his tears of laughter turn into tears of pain. She smiled warmly at him, and gave his hand a gentle, reassuring squeeze.

"I think we're going to be just fine, partner," she told him, aware that Deakins was standing close by, looking on with a relieved smile of his own. Bobby returned her smile with a small, shy one of his own.

"Yeah," he murmured, even as he finally gave in to the need for sleep, and his eyes slid shut. "I know we are… Alex."

* * *

_tbc..._


	12. Epilogue

_A/N_: Thanks heaps to all the reviewers who have been so positive. Particularly to Angelfirenze for your very encouraging reviews. I'm just glad that people are enjoying what I'm writing. That's the really satisfying part of this whole exercise.  
Also, to TrinityWildcat, it's curious you should mention wanting to see Bobby and Alex start to recover from their experiences in _Remembrance_. You just never know what can happen, even though I do tend to adhere to the 'it's always darkest before the dawn' proverb. Not to give anything away, of course, because even though I have a good idea of what I want to have happen, sometimes it just doesn't work out that way. I reckon most of you probably have a pretty good idea what I mean...

_

* * *

_

_A few weeks later_

"I still can't believe he plead not guilty," Jason said with a disbelieving shake of his head as he walked along the airport concourse with his parents, Bobby, Alex and Deakins.

Bobby was confined to a wheelchair, much to his displeasure, and to Alex and Deakins' amusement. His injuries were healing well, but it was a slow process, and he was under strict orders from his doctor not to do anything that could either put his damaged leg at risk, or cause the knife wound to reopen.

Either way, it meant being chauffeured around in the wheelchair, and he didn't like it one bit.

"It's his prerogative," Deakins said.

"I would have thought his lawyer would have pushed for a plea bargain when he failed to have him declared legally insane," Donavon mused, "but apparently Alan is determined to have his day in court."

"His loss," Alex said glibly. "Branch will tear his defence to shreds."

Deakins nodded. "That was a minor coup, getting Branch to prosecute personally, but I'm going to inquire about that ADA who's assisting him… Carver, I think his name is. He'd be a good man to have on our team, prosecuting our cases for us."

"Well," Bobby said with a faint smile, "between Branch's prosecution techniques, our testimonies, and all the evidence that CSU have against him, the son of a bitch'll be lucky to avoid the death penalty."

"Branch is still thinking on whether he'll ask for it for the murders of Tommy Oliver and Trini Kwan," Deakins said. Sarah looked at him worriedly.

"Would they really sentence him to death?"

"He murdered a police officer, Mrs Scott," Deakins told her gently. "There's no second chance on a charge like that. It's an automatic death sentence on conviction. Problem is that the evidence for that murder is a little bit thin, and there's no guarantee we'll get a conviction for it. That, and juries are notoriously recalcitrant about returning guilty verdicts when they know the penalty is death." He paused, glancing down at the wheelchair-bound detective. "On the other hand, there's no way he'll be able to get out of being convicted for what he did to Goren and Jason, and abduction, assault and attempted murder of a police officer is an automatic life sentence, with no chance of parole. Either way, he'll never see the light of day outside prison walls again."

Jason grimaced.

"We still have to testify, though. I'm not looking forward to that."

"I am," Bobby said, drawing surprised looks from those around him.

"You can't be serious," Jason said incredulously.

"No, really, I am," Bobby insisted. "I'm looking forward to getting on the stand, and being able to look that bastard in the eye, and saying yes, he's the one who abducted us, and tried to kill us."

Jason sighed as they came into the waiting lounge at their gate, and sat down to wait for the boarding call.

"Well, I'll leave the enthusiasm to you, if you don't mind," Jason muttered.

Bobby grinned briefly and started to shift in the wheelchair, only to have Deakins' hands come down very firmly on his shoulders, keeping him still.

"I wasn't going to try and get up!" he protested, glaring up at his captain. Deakins, however, was unrepentant.

"You heard what your doctor said, Goren. I promised him I wouldn't let you be jostled around too much, and that includes anything self-inflicted. So unless you want to be back in your hospital bed sooner rather than later, I suggest you do as you're told! You're damned lucky the doctor even gave you permission to leave hospital for this, considering what happened a week ago."

Bobby went red at the memory, and sank down a little in the wheelchair, as though he was trying to make himself invisible.

The incident Deakins was referring to were Bobby's somewhat premature efforts at independent movement. Two weeks into his hospital stay, Bobby had been transported to the Imaging wing of the hospital, for x-rays to determine that his leg and his arm were both healing properly. Upon returning him to his room, though, the orderly had foolishly left the wheelchair in the room with Bobby. The detective, who had steadily been going stir crazy from the enforced bed-rest, had waited until the orderly was gone, and then climbed out of bed and into the wheelchair and manoeuvred himself out of his room.

Deakins and Alex had arrived only minutes later to find his bed empty, and no one knowing where he was. A frantic search, first of the floor and then the rest of the hospital, subsequently found Bobby in the little hospital greenhouse, out of the wheelchair and lying unconscious on the ground, with the back of his pyjama top soaked in his own blood. In the process of moving himself from the bed to the wheelchair, he'd managed to reopen the knife wound in his back and by the time he'd realised what he'd done, he was beyond the immediate help of any of the hospital staff.

His doctor had been furious, and had threatened to keep him in hospital for full month longer than necessary if he 'ever pulled any dumb shit like that again'.

In the end, the threats had been unnecessary. Bobby had given himself enough of a scare without anyone needing to resort to underhanded means to keep him where he was supposed to be. It was, they all knew, his meek compliance with his doctor's orders from that point on which had convinced the doctor to allow him to leave the hospital for just a few hours to farewell Jason and his parents from New York.

"Leave him alone, Captain," Alex said, jumping to the defence of her hapless partner. "He's behaved himself since then. He wouldn't do anything stupid. Would you, Bobby?"

Bobby grimaced.

"Not unless I _want_ to be in hospital for another month or two."

Alex smiled sweetly at Deakins.

"You see?"

Deakins smirked.

"All right." He walked around and sat down next to Alex, his gaze going to Jason. "So what's the plan when you get home, Jason?"

Jason smiled wryly.

"I'll have about twelve hours to unpack, repack and head off to the police academy in San Diego."

"They're not making you wait until the next intake, then?" Alex wondered.

"No. They said that as long as I'm willing to do double-time to catch up with the rest of the recruits, there shouldn't be a problem. I'll only be a week and a half behind the rest of them. They've agreed to give me forty-eight hours leave, too, to come back to testify against Alan if it comes up during the training course. I think I'll be okay."

"You will be okay," Donavon told him with a smile. Jason grinned sheepishly.

"Yeah. I _will_ be okay." He looked across at Bobby. "How long before you can go back to work?"

Bobby smiled faintly, feeling a rush of relief and gratitude that he could answer that question positively.

"Another month, and I can go back to work, although I'll probably be on desk duty for a while."

"What do you mean, _probably_?" Deakins retorted, drawing an exasperated groan from Bobby, and laughter from everyone else.

"Okay, I will definitely be on desk duty when I go back. Okay? The point is, I at least have a job to go back to."

The laughter faded fairly abruptly, and Deakins reached over to pat him reassuringly on the shoulder.

"It was never going to be the same as the last time, Bobby. I wasn't going to allow them to get away with anything."

Bobby sighed softly. "They tried, though. Didn't they?"

Deakins grimaced as his thoughts went back to the night immediately following Bobby and Jason's dramatic rescue from Alan Scott's clutches. He had arrived back at Major Case to find a not so small conglomerate of Major Case detectives awaiting word on their colleague. After reassuring them that Bobby was going to make a full recovery, McCall had then told him grimly that there was an IA officer waiting for him in his office.

The confrontation that followed had been spectacular, to say the least.

Deakins had walked into his office, his sharp, suspicious expression taking in the grey-haired man who sat waiting for him.

"_Captain Deakins," the man said, arrogantly not even bothering to get up. "I'm Carl Jackson. I've been sent to investigate Detective Goren's culpability in the incident which took place earlier today."_

_The choice of phrase had incensed Deakins. _

"_Culpability?" he echoed tensely. "Culpability? Detective Goren was nearly murdered by a vicious killer, and you're accusing him of culpability?"_

"_The Chief of Detectives personally requested that we investigate," Jackson said tersely. "Taking into consideration Detective Goren's past history with this particular suspect, it's not unreasonable…"_

"_I beg to differ," Deakins snapped. "It's highly unreasonable. If it weren't for Detective Goren, the suspect, as you put it, would have been shot dead by SWAT this afternoon. Detective Goren's actions prevented the suspect from being injured in any way, and resulted in him being nearly fatally stabbed! So do not come in here and throw around words like culpability! If you want to lay blame, then I suggest you look into the circumstances that saw Alan Scott released from custody to begin with! Now, I suggest you take yourself out of my office right now. The Chief of Detectives might be bosom buddies with that psychopath Scott, but I can assure you that the Governor isn't. So if I hear so much as a whisper that you're investigating Detective Goren, I'll be straight on the phone to the Governor, and then you won't know what the hell hit you. Am I making myself perfectly clear, Detective Jackson?" Deakins leaned in close to him, his eyes blazing with pure fury. "As far as any of my detectives are concerned... especially Detective Goren… your investigation is over."_

The officer had sat frozen, staring at Deakins wide-eyed for several long seconds before getting wordlessly to his feet and stumbling out of Major Case as fast as his feet would take him.

"They tried," Deakins agreed, coming back to the present with a shake of his head. "They were never going to get away with it, though. You're part of my team now, Goren. You screw up, and I'll come down on you like a ton of bricks, but I'll also back you to the hilt against any son of a bitch who tries to walk over the top of you for their own gain."

Bobby nodded wordlessly, looking at Deakins with renewed respect.

"Heads up," Donavon murmured as the boarding call sounded over the loudspeaker system. "That's us."

Jason rose up with his parents, and shook hands first with Deakins, and the Alex. Then, he turned to Bobby, who offered the younger man a crooked smile.

"Hopefully next time I see you, you'll be a rookie."

Jason nodded. "Hope so. Um… I guess…"

He never had the chance to finish whatever he'd been trying to say, for Bobby caught his wrist and pulled him in for a quick, fierce hug.

"Take care," Bobby told him gruffly, and Jason grinned. Really, that was all there was to say, and it was all that was needed to be said.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "You too, Bobby. I… I'll see you round."

Bobby, Alex and Deakins watched as the family disappeared through the boarding gate and then, when the plane was finally taxiing out to the runway, they began the trek back through the airport.

"Back to the hospital, then?" Deakins asked, and Bobby responded with a resounding groan.

"Not yet, please…"

"Aw, Bobby, you'll miss your nice lukewarm hospital dinner," Alex teased, and Bobby shook his head.

"That's the whole idea."

"Don't torment him, Alex," Deakins said with a laugh, and Alex rolled her eyes.

"Spoil sport."

Bobby strained to look up at the two of them, puzzled but hopeful.

"What?"

"We thought we'd take advantage of this little sojourn," Deakins told him. "How does steak and pasta sound?" Neither of them missed the way Bobby's face lit up, and Deakins chuckled. "Thought so. There's a nice little restaurant just around the corner from the hospital. We can go there, and still have you back within the time limit set by your doctor."

"Just be sure to keep your trap shut," Alex warned him. "Don't make us regret it by getting us into trouble with your doctor."

Bobby grinned at her. "Don't worry, I'll keep quiet. Scout's honour. What's the occasion, though?"

She grinned back at him.

"Does there have to be?"

Bobby looked at her with a thoughtful smile before settling back in the wheelchair, feeling happier and more satisfied than he had for a long, long time.

"Nope," he said cheerfully. "There doesn't. No reason at all."

* * *

_Fin._


End file.
